I Remember When
by L. Damarik Laizare
Summary: -Things seemed to be going good. When we were together, and the only thing I needed was to see you smile. That seems like forever ago now...and I wish we were still there.- Is it truth that drives us to seek out forgiveness or destruction?
1. Run Away and Never Return

"_Looking Back at Me, I See That I never Really Got it Right. I Never Stopped To Think of You. I'm Always Wrapped up in Things I Cannot Win…"_

_Lyrics to the song "Cold" by: Crossfade, Copyright in 2004 to Crossfade and Columbia Records_

* * *

The midnight air blew warm through the trees on old Rte. 934.

Heavy metal drowned out the sound of tires on the road, the roar of the engine just a dull reminder that he couldn't escape the world he was trapped in. Where rubber met concrete, he tried to leave the horrid images of a life gone to hell on the road, pushing the accelerator past its limits, bending the metal truss it was attached to near it's breaking point. Voices echoed at the back of his mind, playing the same scene over and over again in his head like some old, worn out record...an overture to his flight from what was once considered to be a happy time.

He couldn't push his mind past the events that had happened what seemed like hours ago. Even though months had passed, it still drove him to madness, thinking about everything he'd done. Even after the fact, he was still acting upon things that should've never been. Thoughts that should've stayed implications...never to be made into action. Yet, here it was, being acted upon.

And so he ran. As far as his Jeep would take him. Away from that miserable trailer park. Away from friends and family. Away from her.

He drove on through the night, stopping only to take a quick break every now and then, filling his gas tank with what money he had left. Any hunger he had was all but gone, his only companions on the ride being a gallon jug of tea-cooler and a pack of Newport 100 length cigarettes, his favorite comforts. That and an old Cort acoustic guitar in a bag on his back seat.

Through the blaring sounds of In Flames pulsing through his cd player, his emotions pouring into the music, he drove straight through to the morning, eyes dead set on the road ahead of him. As the sun began to peek over the horizon, he finally pulled into a truckstop along the interstate and fell asleep.

* * *

_  
"I have to admit, these past few weeks...I was only pretending to be happy, just for your sake. I'm sorry, I didn't want to hurt you."_

_"No...it was my fault for being so blind to my own actions. God I can't believe I was so stupid."_

_"I just wanted to tell you...that I don't think we were working out. So...I think this is it."_

_-It's Over.-_

_"Does it have to be? I can't understand why you feel this way."_

_"Then isn't that reason enough?"_

_-But you did understand.-_

_"Why can't you see what's going on around you? Is it because you're too strung up on what you want to accomplish in life? Am I just a means to an end for you? Something you can just throw away when you've no need for me anymore?"_

_"No! I'd never do that to you!"_

_-And yet...you did.-_

_"Damn it to Hell, open your eyes already! Quit living in your fantasy world!"_

_"I Have To! I Don't Have A Choice In The Matter Anymore! Reality Holds Nothing For Me Now!"_

_-No, of course it doesn't.-  
_

_"So I'm nothing then?"_

_-Nothing what so ever.-_

_"That's not true...I swear it's not true..."_

_"I think we both know it is. We're done. Goodbye."_

_"Please, Don't Leave Me!"_

_-And then...she left. Just like that.-  
_

_

* * *

  
_He awoke to the sound of someone knocking on the window to his Jeep. The time showing on the clock read 5:15pm. Sitting up, he rolled down the window, letting the fresh air waft in, rousing his senses. Turning to look outside, he was met with a face worn by time and a scruffy bandana, barely able to keep its hold on the thick clumps of brown touseled hair in check. He leaned heavily on the door, caloused skin pressing against the window of the vehicle, the smell of alcohol and stale smoke clinging around him.

"Hey bud, spare a smoke?" the man asked.

Looking around quickly, he pulled the release on the seat to bring it to it's upright position. Sitting up, he reached into his pockets without a word, drawing the pack of cigarettes out and handing one to the guy.

"Thanks man. Been dying for one all day."

"Not a problem." he sighed.

The other man lit his cigarette, inhaling deeply from it before standing up and shaking himself out. He was tall, looking to be in his late thirties to early forties, with a thin scruff of a beard showing around the edges of his chin. A jean-jacket vest was wrapped around a thin upper body frame, while leather boots and torn black jeans clung to his legs.

"The name's Gene. And you?" the older man asked.

"Everyone I know calls me D." he replied.

"D huh? Short for something I take it."

D nodded curtly, still shaking the sleep from his eyes.

"Damarik."

"Really? What's the background on that name? European? French? Sounds foreign."

"Nah...it's something that came to me when I was a kid. Used it as a tag on all my drawings and stuff."

Gene stepped back as Damarik stepped out of the Jeep, lighting a smoke of his own.

"It's actually short for a longer name...I just don't use the rest of it all that often."

The older man grunted in reply.

"Kids. Always tryin' to outrun the names their parents give em."

Damarik laughed lightly at that.

"So true, you've no idea how close to home that hit."

"Well...Damarik...it's been a pleasure meetin' ya, but I've gotta get back on track. Got a truck run goin' up to Maine, gotta be there by Thursday mornin'."

"Hey, nice talking to ya. Hope it goes well."

The trucker started walking off as Damarik leaned up against the side of the Jeep. He paused midstep, however, turning back for just a moment.

"No matter how hard ye' try...ain't no outrunning the past. It'll always catch up to ya' sooner or later."

And with that, he returned to his truck, leaving Damarik standing beside his Jeep in the middle of the parking lot. The wind kicked up for a moment, drowing out the noise of the cars passing by on the interstate, the only other sound echoed voices in his head yet again.

_'That was an interesting visit...'_

"Tell me about it." he returned.

_'You know, he's absolutely right. Look at me, and you'll see the truth behind his words.'_

Damarik shook his head.

"I don't really think that your situation counts in what I'm dealing with. No offense meant."

_'None taken little one. None taken.'_

He'd always wondered what exactly it was that brought that consoling voice to him. Whether it'd been the trinket of a glass ball he'd found locked away in his grandmother's attic...or possibly that he'd been born connected to it, Damarik had heard that voice since he'd been fourteen...taking his new name from it, in truth.

Outing what remained of the stub left smoldering at the end of his cigarette, Damarik returned to the Jeep and turned the key. Once back on the interstate, he cranked the volume back up on the stereo, throwing in the next CD in his case. A light drop-D guitar strum came up as the overture to The Lost Prophets song, Shinobi Vs. the Dragon Ninja. Somehow feeling lighter since the previous night, he listened in, even singing along to the words behind the steering wheel.

_-And I know you say...that I can't care for someone...But are you that clever...that you smile forever? Is it summer yeah...'cuz I just don't feel it. Baby it's a treaty...maybe you are not her...-  
_

* * *

_"You're looking over my shoulder, always asking where I've been...where I'm going...who I'm going with...I can't take it anymore!"_

_"But I've always tried to let you be who you are. I never meant to pry, honest."_

_"Well...you are. You're turning out to be no better than the last three."_

_-And you claim to be just trying to get to know her friends...-_

_"He was telling a funny story...but I couldn't hear parts. Is it wrong to ask what was going on?"_

_"That's not what you were doing!"_

_-Indeed...you were being nosy.-_

_"If I could take back everything you say I've done...then what would we have? Absolutely nothing!"_

_"Don't start yelling at me!"_

_"I'm Not Yelling. I'm trying to tell you what my reasons are!"_

_"You really scare me sometimes...you know that?"_

_-Yes...you can be quite frightening when you get angry...-  
_

_

* * *

  
_The sound of an incoming truck horn snapped him back to reality. Slamming on the brakes to avoid the rear end of the car in front of him, Damarik could feel the Jeep's center of gravity fly off to the left as the steering wheel jerked from his hands, the concrete median strip throwing the vehicle to the right, hard. Shattering glass flew about the inside of the SUV, obstructing his vision, cutting into his palms as he tried to get hold of the wheel again. But the Jeep wouldn't respond. It threw itself to the right again, once more meeting the median barrier. In a groaning protest, the vehicle flipped to its side, the short wheel base skewing the balance of the Jeep to Hell and back. Damarik felt himself hit the ceiling, though not as hard as he could have, given that the seatbelt held firmly.

As the world spun out of control around him, the sound of screaming metal filled his ears. A deafening cacophany of twisting steel, the revv of the engine at full acceleration and the heavy thumps of the Jeep skipping across the shoulder of the road blazed a symphony of horror to the overture that would surely be his death. As the engine hit it's final breaking point, an explosion rocked the vehicle, and the world went black.

* * *

_-Now you've done it.-_

_-Gone and wasted everything. What would your mother think?-_

_'I had to leave...I couldn't bear to stay any longer...'_

_-Well...at least your father won't be able to ridicule you for this occasion.-_

_'Shut up and leave me alone...'_

_-There you go again. Pushing others away. Just like you did to her.-_

_'Shut Up!'_

_-And yelling at a voice in your head...I'll bet the men at PhilHaven would love to get their gloves on you...-_

* * *

_  
_"Hey D...Dammik...whatever...you alive in there?!"

He was faintly aware of the voice of the trucker from the rest stop. Everything else seemed like a horrible nightmare. Smoke could be seen from the front windshield, which had decided to come undone into millions of shards everywhere. There was a dull tingle in his palms where pieces of said glass had lodged themselves and cut deep, blood flowing from the tiny holes as free as the water that could be heard in the distance.

"Don't worry son, help's on the way!"

"Help...never wanted...needed...help before..." he gasped weakly.

"Just hang tight bud, I'm gonna get ye' out of there!"

Damarik's vision faded in and out as the sensation of hitting the passenger door of the Jeep slammed through his body. The sound of apologies soon became deafened by the roar of traffic on the interstate, quickly followed by the wail of sirens.

Sirens...

_'That's no fire engine or ambulance I've ever heard...'_ his mind swam in the dizzying after-effects of the crash. The pain was barely a twinge...even as the blackness of unconsciousness crept up upon his eyes.

_'Sounds like...an old air raid siren...'_


	2. Welcome to Where Time Stands Still

_"Welcome to Where Time Stands Still. Where No One Leaves and No One Will. Moon is Full, Never Seems to Change. Just Labels Mentally Deranged..."  
_

_Lyrics to the song "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)" by: Metallica, Copyright in 1986 to Metallica and Sweet Silence Studios.  


* * *

_

It was cold. Unusually so, even for late in the day. The ground seemed to be sucking all the warmth from his body as he lay there in the middle of the road. The sky had turned a sickening shade of grey since he had last seen it, and it was darker than it should've been. Moving didn't hurt as much as he might've expected it to. In fact, the pain was all but gone. There only remained a dull ache in the back of his head.

Standing up to his full six foot two inches in height, Damarik brushed off his coat and turned to look behind him.

The Jeep sat on it's side, damaged beyond repair. The frame had twisted in odd angles from the skid down the road, looking like it had struck a few signs on the easement to the side of the interstate as it had slid.

"My insurance guy's gonna love this..." he sighed, reaching into his pocket. He pulled out his cell phone, an AT&T Palm Centro. Renowned for their service coverage, he stood in dumbstruck awe for a few seconds as the phone kept repeating...no signal. "I always have signal on 81...what the hell is going on here?"

_'You would do well to keep your wits about you little one. I don't believe we're in Kansas anymore, so to speak...' _his mental counterpart spoke up.

"Oh really? And what the Hell is that supposed to mean exactly?"

_'I can't be certain for sure, but we're definitely not where we were when the Jeep crashed.'_

'Fucking beautiful...riddles abound. What next?' he thought to himself. Feeling a mental shrug coming on, he stifled it with a raised hand.

"Forget I asked. Let's just see what's going on around here."

Striking out in the direction he'd come from, Damarik started walking back towards a gas station he'd passed two miles before his accident. For some odd reason, there was a dense fog obscuring his vision of the road...and not only that, but the interstate was dead quiet. Not another car was to be seen or heard.

'What the crap is up with this?'

Adding to the enigma a little bit over half a mile down the road, he barely caught himself before his foot struck dead air. Looking down before him, the road had completely been demolished, leaving nothing but a pit that spanned the entire width of the road, and what looked to include the surrounding countryside as well. Somewhere off in the distance, the sound of water lapping at a shore was just audible over the light breeze that blew up from the crevasse.

"Well...there's something you don't see every day." he half joked to himself.

_'Confident, aren't we?'_ his voice questioned.

"Listen up L...because I know you're playing dumb for my sake. We both know I'm a sarcastic bastard...so let's just cut it, please? This is starting to freak me out a bit, all right?"

_'Very well, if you wish. Just trying to lighten the mood is all.'_ the entity known as L responded.

"Thanks. So...let's see...back up the road...or try to find a way across the massive pit-o'-death here?"

_'I get the feeling that there might not be a way across it...'_

"Then we go back the way I was attempting to drive before someone thought it a good idea to turn me into a road pizza."

_'You really should've been paying more attention to the road...'_

"Oh be quiet you." Damarik half laughed. "Let's just get this over with."

He began to walk back to the Jeep, finding that it had been not a whole twenty paces back through the fog, only now it was back on all four wheels again without a scratch on it.

"Okay...now this is just fuckin' weird."

_'As I said...keep your wits about you. Something's not right.'_

"No shit..." Damarik whispered to himself.

Quickly ducking inside the Jeep, he grabbed his jug of iced tea, and out of force of habit, slung the guitar bag over his shoulder. Without so much as trying the ignition on the Jeep, he pulled the keys from the ignition and attached the carabiner that held them to a belt loop on his jeans. There wasn't much else to be brought with that might've been of any use...he had his trusty Marine Corps. zippo lighter in his pocket, a small folding knife attached to his belt by the clip. Everything else was dead weight.

Striking out down the road, Damarik found himself slowly settling into a feeling of ease in the fog filled countryside. There wasn't much sound, save the thunk-thunk of his steel toed boots on the ground, and the occasional breeze blowing across the interstate, but he found himself calm and collected, despite the things he'd encountered. It felt too much like a dream to be real, though even in his most vivid dreams, he'd never felt this calm. As he continued on the shoulder of the road, a sign came up out of the fog into view.

"Silent Hill huh? Well...what do you say L? It says the exit is only another two miles down the strip...though I can't ever recall this exit being on 81. It's the closest thing I've seen to civilization yet."

_'Well, nothing has been typical of this drive so far...so why would it be strange to encounter a place we've never heard of before? Let's give it a go and see if we can find someone who can get us back on the right track.'_

"Hang on. I want to see where the highway's leading first. Maybe it's just damaged back there."

_'If you insist.'_

Damarik continued up past the exit for the town listed on the sign, but there too, the road had been destroyed...seemingly at no surprise to L.

"Silent Hill it is then."

Damarik continued back along the highway at his easy plodding pace, turning right two miles down the road at the interchange and following the ramp down off of the interstate. The next sign read only another mile to the town. The further he went, it seemed a thick forest slowly began to creep up on either side of the pavement, tall pines, junipers, and various assorted other trees intermingling their branches together.

"Hey...I think I see a sign past the first set of oaks down there..."

_'What does it say?'_

"Welcome...to...damn my eyes. I think it says Welcome to Silent Hill. We must be there. Look...there's an intersection right there too."

As he came upon the old wooden sign embossed in faded gold lettering, the trees on either side of the road faded away to open grass lots on the right, a brick and stone wall on the left, and a smaller green street sign stood at the corner of an intersection. He could make out Acadia Road written in white lettering across the the top sign, and Midway Avenue down the bottom sign. Looking around, he saw no signs of movement in the fog, and when it became apparent that there were no cars to be found either, he crossed the road. Immediately to his right, there sat a tavern on the corner, the timbers used in it's construction grown over with vines from the small flowerbed that surrounded it's main entry.

"Huh...I wonder if any of the liquor in there is still good? I could go for a stiff drink right about now."

_'This is no time to be thinking about alcohol. Keep your mind on task. We need to find someone to get directions to a nearby hospital.'_

"Hospital? Why? I feel fine, aside from that pain in the back of my head."

_'You haven't taken a real good look at yourself, have you?'_

"What are you talking abo...oh shit."

Turning his hands over, Damarik found that there was still large fragments of glass stuck in his palms and wrists. Looking at the rest of himself, his jeans were torn wide open at the left knee and a large scrape was present there, dribbling fresh blood with every step he took. His coat was rent from the middle of his back up to the right sleeve and hung down at his butt on that side, dangling like some loose rag. And yet still somehow, though knowing it should hurt...it didn't.

"I seriously feel fine..." he tried to convince L as he began to pick the glass out of his hands. Not a twinge ran through as shard after shard was removed...as if he was numb to pain, but still able to feel as normal.

_'Well...I don't think you're okay, but if you insist...it can wait.'_

"So..." Damarik wondered out loud, spinning around to get a look at the immediate buildings..."Wonder what's behind that stone wall over there."

_'Your guess is as good as mine little one. Perhaps we should go find out?'_

"Maybe. I'm thinking there's gotta be one of those old tourist maps around here somewhere. At least I hope."

Damarik began to make his way down Acadia, the stone wall stretching out down the street on his left. He passed a few seemingly ordinary buildings to his right, crossing over Cielo Avenue in the process, until he found a break in the wall.

"Oh fuck that." he spoke, looking up at the wrought iron bars that wound up and over the driveway.

The words 'Cedar Grove Sanitarium' were skillfully worked into the archway, though rust seemed to be seeping through the black paint overlay. Behind the gate and arch lay what looked like a huge hill, a driveway winding up it's width around to the right where it curved back to the left and out of sight through the fog. A few trees were planted here and there, with a park bench on the grounds sparsely intermingled with the flora. But the main building itself loomed as a massive shadow just out of sight through the fog.

"Okay...so scratch that as an option."

_'What, so soon?'_

"You know my feelings about nut-houses. I'd like to stay on the outside of them, thank you."

_'But...you don't have a reason to be admitted.'_

"Ha...get this. I'm standing here in the middle of the street, talking to what most would consider a figment of my imagination...and having an argument with it. Yeah...I'm not crazy or some shit like that. Pfft...not a chance."

_'Well then...any more ideas?'_

Damarik looked around quickly.

"Okay...I can barely make out a Toluca Avenue down there at the next intersection...but the rest of these buildings...I dunno. They all seem pretty messed up. Looks like somethin' pretty nasty happened here."

_'I say we venture into the aforementioned 'nut-house'.'_

"That's you. I really don't like those places L."

_'You've nothing to fear, so long as you don't openly talk to me inside there. Remember...I can hear your thoughts.'_

"Fine! Whatever...we'll go." Damarik sighed heavily. With what felt like lead in his boots, he made his way through the gates of the sanitarium, and started on the long winding path up the hill. Each step brought feelings of unease that disrupted the calm he'd felt before, until it began to eat away at him like a cancer. Slowly, the massive building came out of the fog and into sight.

It appeared to be made of old stone and granite, two stories high, and was spread out across the grounds like a college campus building. Two separate wings sat out from the main atrium, attached by mid-sized halls with the arched shingles one might've found on a Midwestern home. The defunct drainage gutters hung loosely from their bindings, bird nests built into their tops as a tribute to how long it had been since any repair had been done to the building.

"God this place gives me the creeps...seems deserted. No lights, no signs of life..."

Approaching the main entrance, Damarik pushed open the heavy front doors and was met with near complete darkness.

"Do I really have to go in there?" he asked.

_'Better to try and fail than to leave and never know.'_

"I hate it when you get philosophical on me."

_'Well...from the looks of things...it appears the least of your worries is being caught talking to yourself.'_ L chuckled inside the confines of his head.

"Funny...real funny. Snarky-assed son of a bitch."

If the exterior of the building looked dilapidated, the inside was ready to fall apart at a feather's drop. Broken tiles littered the floor, the walls looked ready to crumble on a moment's notice...furniture was ripped and torn and papers were scattered about like a tornado had blown through. Reaching down to pick one up, Damarik studied it for a moment.

* * *

_To Dr. Kauffman:_

_The patient in F1WRB7 seems to be growing in delusions by the day. No landmark results have been noted in his therapy, yet he insists on these 'demonic figures', and has described a number of them to the nurses on staff. He has been exhibiting the typical signs of schizophrenia, and is often seen talking to himself while staring at the back wall of his quarters._

_Dr. Rabbans has suggested that perhaps he is lacking in dopamine levels, due to an exhibited lack of memory and coordination, and has administered the recommended dosage for use in such cases. It is imperative that we ask you to come in on Thursday for a sit-in session with him. If you would reply as soon as possible to this situation, it would be most appreciated._

_

* * *

_

"Dopamine huh? Good stuff."

_'Like you would know.'_

"Hey...don't forget, mom is a nurse herself. She works in the Pre-Op room. She's gotta know her shit."

_'Do you think that there's the possibility that we might find anything useful here?'_

The halls reverberated with the echo of a palm hitting a face.

"If I didn't, do you think we'd be in here right now...against my better judgment?"

He was met with silence.

"That's what I thought. All right...let's see what we've got here."

Looking off to his left, Damarik found himself staring down the broken door to the reception desk. Stepping inside, he began to rifle through the files and folders left haphazardly on the desk. When that proved fruitless, he started by opening the drawers and searching through them.

"Aha...there we go. A map." he noted, picking up a structural design of the building, labeling each room and corridor with precision.

_'Sounds a bit too easy if you ask me. What kind of mental institution has maps of it's structure just lying around? Don't you think the people here would know how to get from one room to another?'_

Damarik shrugged.

"Maybe it's for visitors? So...what else do we have? Huh...another page on that guy..." he spoke softly, picking up the report.

* * *

January 14th, 19#7

The patient in question, F1WRB7, Mr. K#/(#, has been suffering from the delusions that he is able to commune with people from another dimension. An alternate reality, as he sees it. He states to the inquirer that he can see them through the mirror in his room, and that they talk to him in return. While the nurses and doctors on staff in that wing have not yet seen this behavior present, he insists that they instruct him to leave the area, and return to the 'Glen of the Silver Shards'. Wherever that might be, we have as of yet to ascertain, but further study into the matter will be taken.

* * *

"Huh...sounds like a real nut job."

_'Maybe perhaps...but no worse off than you.'_ L's mental grin could be felt as though it were plastered on Damarik's face.

"Oh har fucking har. You're a real cut up. Ever think of doing..."

A crash from the main atrium center cut Damarik's words short. Leaning his head out through the reception window just enough to get a look down the hall, he could barely make out the shadow of a figure moving through the darkness.

"Shit...what the hell is this now?" he asked himself silently. "Fuck that, we're getting out of here right now."

Moving just as stealthily as a ninja through the busted archway, Damarik made quickly for the front doors. Grabbing the handles, he twisted and jerked them open.

"Wait...what?"

Or at least twisted and jerked. The doors remained stationary. Locked.

"Oh fuck this shit..." he silently cursed himself, thankful that the noise of the doors had apparently gone unnoticed to whoever it was in the central rotunda. "Just what I wanted..." he tried the doors again. "To be locked inside the fucking loony bin..."

A soft scuffling sound froze him dead in his tracks. Turning around, he could see the shadowy figure standing just inside the darkness that wasn't penetrated by what little light shown through the front translucent windows.

"Uh...Hi there. Um, I just kinda got locked in here see...I'm new in town and I was looking for directions to the nearest hospital? I was in a car wreck back on the interstate...wanted to get...checked...up..." he slowly stopped talking as it became apparent the figure wasn't interested in his story. It took a step out of the shadows and into the light.

What should've been a normal foot was bent and curved into some strange paw pad of a creature from a time long forgotten. The saurian limb was attached at the hips, where a wicked looking tail curved out behind the form, wrapped in writhing black flesh that oozed puss from multiple open sores whenever it moved. From there on up, the beast was covered in massive pustules that looked like something out of the black plague, tinged red at the tops of each nub. It had no arms, but its elongated snout drove forward with four or five rows of fangs. No eyes were visible, but what appeared to be two ear holes looked like they were given to the creature, held on with massive surgical staples.

The monstrosity took two lumbering steps forward, seemingly about as uncoordinated as it looked, its mouth searching for the sounds its Frankenstein ears had just heard.

Feeling around for the knife on his belt, Damarik withdrew it and flicked it open.

The creature caught the sound of the metal clasp and lunged forward with an inhuman roar. The stumbling footsteps turned into lightning fast precision speed, surging the monster towards its target with almost laser guided accuracy. Quickly ducking out of the way, Damarik swiped the knife across the monster's skin, ripping open a few of the pustules with the serrated edge of the blade. The monster shrieked out in pain, lashing it's tail around to strike.

Damarik dodged to the left to avoid the tail, only to be caught by a kick from the monster's right foot. It sent pain...real pain, through his gut where it contacted, talons ripping through the front of his shirt and catching skin. The lacerations left behind burned beyond belief, but Damarik pushed it out of his mind, getting back to his feet.

"All right bitch. It's fuckin go-time! Marine Corps. Style!"

Bringing both fists up in the standard self-defense, knife held outward in right hand, Damarik struck out, cutting a divot into the creature's snout. When it came around to try and take a bite out of him, he ducked it, dropping down and bringing his fist up into it's lower jaw. Leaving the monster stunned temporarily, he seized the opportunity to circle around behind it, gripping around it's throat in a headlock. Before he could bring the knife up to cut it however, the creature's tail appeared between their bodies, a spike like projection shooting out of it, embedding itself in his stomach. The puss covering the tail spattered into the gash and the wounds left by the talons, and a burning pain shot throughout his body, dropping him to the floor.

"Son of a Bitch!!!" He shouted, springing back up to drive the blade into the throat of the creature just as it turned around to finish him off. The monster stumbled back, knife sticking out from it's chest instead, gave a pitiful yelp and ran off back into the darkness from where it had come.

"Fuck...fucking fucker! Took my god damned knife with em...shit! Fucking hell that burns! Agh!"

Damarik fell to the floor again, clutching his stomach as what felt like liquid fire began to spread throughout his chest. His world began to fade away into unconsciousness once more, but after a few moments, it came back into focus, the pain ebbing away.

"Thanks L...I needed that."

_'Not a problem. Just remember that if you die...so to do I...so I can't go letting off that easy. I managed to push the secretion back out of the wounds, but you still need to bandage it up to prevent infection.'_

"Always thinking about your fellow man...er, you know what I mean." He laughed lightly.

_'Yes...well, if you're done bleeding all over yourself, I suggest we find some bandages and then see about another weapon...unless you're dead set on getting that knife back.'_

"Actually yes...that was my father's knife. I want it back." Glaring off in the direction the creature had gone, he fumbled around for his iced tea jug by the door where he'd dropped it upon first entering, pulling the guitar case off his back. Ripping the cap off the jug, he downed a few quick swallows, the last one nearly catching in his throat. "Hey...wait a second. Is it me, or is it getting darker in here?"

_'I had noticed that as well...'_

L's words were lost to the rising drone of hollow, empty sounding siren that began to wail somewhere nearby. The pitch rose and fell steadily, getting louder and then softer, and with each fall, the darkness around Damarik began to become more complete. Clutching his stomach to ease the bleeding, he walked gently over to the door to look out the window as the last of the light around him began to falter.

"Hey L...remember that movie Pitch Black?"

_'Vaguely...'_

"I think I'm beginning to know how they felt when the eclipse started..."


	3. A Lesson in Split Personalities

_"Fear of Living On. He is Getting Restless Now. Mutiny In the Air. Got Some Death to Do. Mirror Stares Back Hard. Kill is Such a Friendly Word. Seems the Only Way. For Reaching Out Again..."  
_

_Lyrics to the song "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)" by: Metallica, Copyright in 1986 to Metallica and Sweet Silence Studios.  


* * *

_

The world had faded into complete shadows as he stood looking out the window. The walls themselves had morphed into some twisted hellish remnant of what they had been only moments before. Steel and mesh fencing now predominated the former plastered structure. From somewhere in the background of the building, an ambient metal clanking issued forth, almost as if the world itself had become made entirely of machinery of a factory at full production speed.

"You were saying something about this place being off? I think I can completely agree now." Damarik choked out.

_'Quickly, we must still find something to help tend to your wounds.'_

"Are you serious? In a place like this? I might have trusted something from before, but now? God knows I might end up with tetanus if I even so much as put on a piece of gauze! Who knows if the stuff is infested with rusty metallic bits now?"

_'Maybe they have some antiseptic foam lying around?'_

"Dude...that's Bio foam. Video game stuff. Like in Halo. This is completely different."

_'Perhaps you're right. Regardless, I do believe we're trapped in here. Might as well take a look around.'_

"You're shitting me! After whatever it was that just attacked me? I don't want to spend another minute here."

With steeled resolve, Damarik picked up a piece of grating that had come loose from the floor, hurling it at the windows of the door. It met the glass with a harsh metallic squeal and vaulted off into the darkness.

"That is some serious bullshit right there. That window should've broken." He stared at the glass. "What is this, fucking bullet proof?"

He quickly located a pretty beat up looking folding chair from against the wall, slamming it into the glass with all his strength. The legs bounced off, forcing the head of the chair back into his face.

"Gah! Fuck!" he cursed from behind his hands, lips now swollen and bleeding. "God damn it all! Why won't it break?!"

_'I don't think we're meant to leave here.'_

"Yeah well, if this is someones idea of a joke, they're pretty screwed up in the head."

_'Shall we find those medical supplies then? They're bound to be lying about somewhere. This is a psychiatric **-Hospital-**...'_

With a grunt, Damarik slung his guitar bag back over his shoulder, picking up his tea bottle. Unfolding the map he had obtained, he rifled through the three sheets, trying to find the one that matched the ground floor.

"Shit, it's so freaking dark in here I can't read the floor print."

Flicking his trusty Zippo lighter out of his pocket, he illuminated the area with it's flame. If it had looked bad in the dark, the surrounding building looked thousands of times worse in the light. Blood caked the steeled walls in various places, what looked like entrails could be seen jammed underneath the door to the office he'd retrieved the map from. Strangely enough, the door was back on it's hinges, though the reception windows were grated over with bars covered in small spikes. There were seemingly bottomless pits everywhere, marking the floor like an old world war battle field, a dull red light shining up from within the blackness.

"Okay...so we're here in the main atrium...up ahead is the rotunda...looks like there are storage rooms either direction from the main hall. Patient belongings is dead ahead...and there's a doctor's office up there too. Must be the main quack."

_'As good a place to start as any.'_

Folding the map back up, he tucked it away in his back pants pocket before striking out, Zippo held high to shine the light on his path.

The Rotunda was a complete bloodbath, awash in massive red stains on the floor and walls, even up to the second floor balcony. While it seemed like the stains were old, given what he'd just seen, Damarik didn't want to hang around long. He made his way to the good doctor's office quickly, finding the door unlocked. Stepping inside, a feeling of dizziness washed over him. He doubled over, hand held to the still lightly bleeding gashes in his stomach, nausea threatening to overtake him.

"Do you see anything?" He asked.

_'There...in the top left drawer of the desk...there seems to be some kind of medicinal beverage.'_

"What...like a health drink or something?"

_'That would be an adequate description.'_

Guiding himself through the pitch blackness of the room with lighter in one hand, going on L's sense of perception he rummaged through the desk. His search turned up a small red bottle with a white cap.

"Do not administer to children under seven. Do not use if nursing. Rare side effects may include stomach ulcers, rash, vomiting and diarrhea...wonderful. I cure one thing, I fuck up another...You sure this thing's safe?"

_'I don't see anything wrong with it. The seal is still intact. Just take a small sip to be safe, and see how you feel.'_

"Oh well...bottoms up." Damarik shuddered at the foul smell. It reminded him of Uncle Buck's Canadian Cough Serum...which smelled like Vixx and tasted three times as nasty. This stuff though, as he found out from his sip, tasted a lot better than it smelled. The cherry-mint after flavor was quite nice.

_'Well?'_

"The pain's going away at least...how did you know this was here?"

_'I can tune in on things that make life easier for us. How do you think we found that $50 bill laying in the gas station parking lot under the other guy's tire? It got us what we needed, didn't it?'_

"Nifty how that works..." he replied, downing the rest of the bottle. An odd sensation took over him as he felt his stomach begin to mend itself, almost like magic. "Wow...talk about a quick fixer-upper. This shit really works." Even as he said it, the pain in his mouth died away, remnants of the chair attacking his face in rebound from the door no longer present.

_'Hey...look there, on the desk, by the folders.'_

Damarik looked down to see a stack of papers being held down by a small portable flashlight. Picking it up, he flicked the power switch.

"Figures...damn thing must be busted." he tossed the defunct apparatus back where it lay, shuffling the papers around. "What the hell? This guy again?" A file marked F1WRB7 - Patient S. K#/(# sat just slightly out from the rest of the others in the stack, almost beckoning him to pull it out and read it. "What is his deal? And why do we keep finding his papers?"

_'Perhaps it could involve a clue to getting out of here?'_

"Worth a shot."

Picking the file up, Damarik set his lighter down, praying that the fluid lasted. He opened the folder, finding photos that had been damaged beyond recognition of what used to be on them. Most of the papers were illegible as well, but inside, mounted to the inner cover, was a small cassette tape, marked with the same alphanumerical inscription as the folder and files.

_'There, on the bookshelf in the wall.'_ L noted, there was a cassette player on one of the shelves, laying haphazardly against some medical journals.

"Okay Mr. K...let's see what demons you've got in your head then..." Damarik smirked, moving over to the player, inserting the cassette.

* * *

_Dialogue Number 00342. Patient Name S-static- K-static-, room B7. Hello, how are you doing today?_

_-Fine doctor...fine.-_

_How did you sleep last night? Any interruptions I should know about?_

_-Just Danny next door. Kept crying in his sleep.-_

_Well, let's not worry about Danny for now. We're here to talk about you._

_-As we are every Wednesday doctor.-_

_Good, I see that your memory is holding today. Tell me, did Dr. Rabbans treat you well?_

_-Same as always. Callous, cold, and unwavering.-_

_Ah. We'll have to see about switching someone else in there. But enough of that for now. I heard you saw those people in your mirror again the other day. Want to tell me what was going on?_

_-To be honest? I heard the same thing again. A siren in the distance...and rhythmic chanting. Same as the last two times. I don't know why they're ignoring me now. It's never been like that. They've always been telling me to 'go home', or 'Return to the Glen of the Silver Shards'...just like I told you before. Extra emphasis on Home.-_

_If you're trying to tell me that they want me to let you out of here, then I'm afraid I'm going to have to decline._

_-Oh, I understand perfectly doctor. I belong here. Not that I enjoy where I'm at, but at least it's a shade better than where I was.-_

_Well, I'm glad to hear you approve, and I'm pleased to hear you admitting you need help._

_-Let's face it doc. A guy can't walk around attempting to ignore voices in his head and say he's fine. That's ludicrous. Oh, by the way, Janie says hello. I think she's starting to have a thing for ya, you sly devil.-_

_Okay...well, I'll talk that up with her face to face next time she decides to come have a chat with me, okay?_

_-Fine by me.-_

_Well, I think we're done here for today._

_-Wait.-_

_Is there something wrong?_

_-Yes.-_

_What is it? Are you okay?_

_(growling sounds are heard on the tape...)_

_Oh, hello there Marius. Come to join the session today?_

_-Quite the opposite you old fool. I've come with a warning.-_

_Warning? Dear me, you sound angry._

_(a shatter is heard)_

_Now now, temper Marius. That was one of my last good drinking glasses._

_-Silence fool. Hear this. I speak the words of Xuchilbara, the Red God. The time for judgement is upon this place. Soon, all will be put to trial by flame. Only by the instrument beneath the black waves will anyone be saved. It is the seal that binds us to this reality, keeping the alternate dimensions of Hell at bay. It is the tool used by the ancients of old to seal away the evil that laps at the energy of the world.-_

_My, that does sound horrible. And it's coming soon you say? This, Xuchilbara?_

_-Not the god, but his divine salvation. All will kneel before him and tremble at the sight of true power.-_

_Very intriguing Marius. May I speak with your host again?_

_-You Fool! I try to warn you that your life is in jeopardy, and yet to insist on mocking me?-_

_I'm not, I only wish to speak to..._

_-Then let you be damned to the demons of Hell and all the trials within!_

_(the sound of a scuffle picks up, a slamming door followed by heavy footsteps echo through the recording, as it draws to a close.)_

_-You Have Been Warned Kauffman! You Have Been Warned!!!-_

* * *

Damarik sat back in the doctor's chair for a moment, contemplating the words on the recording.

_'Be glad that I do not over shadow you like that, little one. I've heard it can be...most unpleasant.'_

"Yeah...drives people insane. What do you think he meant...the Instrument Beneath the Black Waves? And who the hell is Xuchibaba or whatever? Some god of the local church?"

_'Your guess is as good as mine.'_

Stroking his chin in thought, he was startled out of his stupor as the room around him began to morph and change. The walls began to revert to their pastel cream color, the plaster once again dominating as the main building substance. The chair he sat in fluffed up considerably from the worn out torn up pad he'd been listening to the tape in. The desk light suddenly snapped on, casting a harsh yellow glow about the room. The light seemed to find its way into all the little cracks where the shadows pervaded, and one crack in particular glinted a silver in color.

"Hello...what do we have here?"

_'Well...it seems your questions about the madman will get some kind of answer...'_

He casually strode over to the nook in between the two lounge chairs for visitors, looking down at the object. Damarik was staring at a key. Checking the map against the number on the key, he found the matching room on the ground floor in the left wing of the building.

"I get it now...the designation....F1WRB7? First Floor Ward Room B-7! That must be this whack job's room." Returning to the desk, pocketing the small key, Damarik picked up his Zippo, noting with satisfaction that the flame was still burning strong. He closed it, let the heat burn off against his palm, and placed it back in his jacket before sitting back down.

_'Dare we venture further into this place? You don't have any...oh, those will do nicely...'_

"What?"

_'Seems the good doctor enjoyed golf.'_

Damarik turned with a mental nudge in the right direction to see a bag of golf clubs peeking out of an open closet door. Getting up out of the chair, he strapped his guitar back on over his shoulder, picking up a hefty 1 Wood club.

"Huh. Who would've guessed?" He chuckled to himself.

Setting it down, he favored over the 3 Iron for a moment or two, testing it's swing arc, before sliding it into the shoulder straps on his guitar bag.

"So...to the Male Wards then?"

_'To the Male Wards it is.'_

"God, if this isn't the strangest trip I've been on so far..." Damarik sighed, grabbed at the handle, only to discover it was now locked. "Oh jumping Jesus Christ on a Popsicle stick...what now? Don't tell me there's going to be some ridiculous puzzle lock somewhere..."

_'What are you going on about?'_

"Dude, this is standard survival horror shit right here. Like Resident Evil or something. Enter a room, find what you need, then get locked in. There's gotta be a puzzle somewhere around here. Maybe pulling the clubs out of the bag initiated the lock or something. I'd bet the rest of my tea on it."

_'Did you try the latch?'_

"Huh?"

Looking down, Damarik found the latch on the door and flipped it. The wood framed portal opened with ease.

_'Always making things difficult, aren't we?'_

"Oh stuff it."

Exiting back into the hall, Damarik turned left to the patients belongings room. It was open, and a quick search through it provided two more of those strange health beverages and some gauze tape with bandages in a small first aid kit. He was about to try the door to what the map labeled the "Cloak Room" when the sound of uneven thudding steps came into the rotunda. The tick-tack of claws on the ground followed by a gruesome roar left no doubt in his mind...

"That's the son of a bitch that stole my knife..."

He raced out into the rotunda, eyes slowly adjusting to the dim light, to see the shadow of the figure stalking through the push-doors from the east wing. Drawing his 3-Iron, Damarik raced at it full speed and swung the club as hard as he could, striking the creature squarely between it's stapled on ears. The monster dropped to the floor where it writhed in agony for a moment. Damarik pulled the lighter from his pocket and lit it, taking in a full view of the creature in the flickering glow.

It's body had been ravaged by what looked like massive lacerations, most of the puss filled tumors that had covered it's body now popped wide open, or clean shaved off in some areas. The creature's tail was missing, a bloody black stump the only remnant of the deadly whip like weapon that had been there during their last encounter. And the monster's face, albeit a little bit smashed from the blow he had just dealt it, was in worse shape than if he'd had stood there, pummeling it for over half an hour. Strangely enough though...

"Where's my god damned knife?!" He kicked the creature hard in the chest, it's foul breath exuding in a massive cough. He lifted his boot high, bringing it down on the creature's neck with a satisfying crunch. The beast moved no more after that, giving Damarik plenty of time to investigate.

_'This appears to be a different one...'_

"What do you mean?"

_'The knife wound you dealt to the other one isn't present among the cuts and gashes of this creature.'_

"Jesus, I should've figured there would be more of em somewhere. But if this isn't the first one...what the hell happened to this thing?"

_'I don't know, but I'd wager a guess that whatever did it lies beyond those doors in the east wing.'_

"All in favor of staying out of there?"

_'We may have to go there eventually.'_

"Damn it. I hate it when you're probably right. And that's a good 90% of the time..."

Leaving the dead monster lying in a pool of it's own viscous blood, intermixed with the secretions from its burst pustules, Damarik turned towards the west wing, striding through the doors. Immediately, he could feel his foot fall through the air, reaching out for something to grab onto. Latching onto the handle of another doorway to his right, he looked down below him to see that the floor had caved away to the basement, dropping right onto the twisted metal support structures that had once held it up. A mesh of re-bar and steel cable stood up at twisted angles, making for a really nasty pun-gee pit.

"Thank god for quick reflexes..." he cursed to himself, reaching out to put his feet on the solid section of floor just past the hole. Once stable, he pulled himself across the hole, letting go of the doorknob, finally standing safe on the opposite side of the pit. "You know, if I didn't know better, I'd say someone was trying to kill me."

_'And what is it that causes you to know better?'_

"Oh come on L. I'm just too awesome for someone to want to kill me. I mean seriously, look at that save I just made. That's gotta be like...a natural twenty on a saving throw, or at least a high roll on 'detect traps'."

_'I'll never understand you and these obscure references...'_ L sighed before going silent once more.

Damarik noted the stairs directly ahead down the hall, turning the corner. He walked the short distance to the next intersection, turned left and entered into the Male Wing. The door to his right led into the Male Wards, but here, he found himself in tight quarters with an old friend.

"You son of a bitch, that's my fucking knife!" He charged forward, club held high. Aiming a blow at the creature like he had the last one, the swing came up on empty space as the monster had stepped back in time, swinging its spiked tail at him. The barbs caught him near the elbow, but only grazed the outer layer of his jacket, barely scratching skin. Swatting the tail away, he swung with the club again, connecting with the monster's kneecap, dropping it to the floor. With two massive swings to the back of the head, it lay on the ground, not moving.

"Now hand that over." He reached down to pluck the knife from the beast's chest, but something tugged back from inside. The knife was caught on something, but a quick and hard yank freed it. With the blade came a small metal tag, but before he could look down to investigate it, the creature lunged up, knocking him backwards. There was a harsh crunch as he hit the ground, and within moments, the beast was on him in a flash, teeth tearing into his shoulder. The serrated edges made quick work of the skin, sawing right through to the bone. He cried out in pain as his right arm went numb, the club dropping to the ground useless.

_'God damn it, I'm not going to let you eat me you bastard!'_ L's voice rang clear in his mind, his left arm, seemingly acting on it's own will, came up and gripped the creature around the neck. With a force he'd never seen before, Damarik's hand crushed the monstrosity's throat like it was easily molded clay. The beast's mouth went slack and it fell on top of him, as dead as the other had been.

Whipping out the red bottled drinks, Damarik chugged the first one, feeling the sensations returning to his arm. With the gauze and the bandages, he patched up his shoulder as best as he could. The bleeding had ceased, though it still hurt like hell. Deciding it wise, he stowed the other bottle back in his coat as he stood up, retrieving the fallen golf club, the knife, and the metal tag.

"Have I ever told you that you scare the living shit out of me sometimes L?"

_'One of us has to be strong when the other cannot.'_ came the reply, a rather cold and empty sound compared to the usual comforting tone of the other. Shaking off the chill that ran down his spine, Damarik took a look over the tag.

"Allen Storage, unit 24. Huh...wonder what the hell's in there?" He questioned the silence as he pocked the tag, pressing on through the second door into the B-Ward. There, the fourth door on the left...was B-7. "All right Mr. K. What do you have for us tonight?"

The door opened relatively easy, the tiny, confined space smelling of rot and decay. Flicking his Zippo on, Damarik searched around the room, coming to find a few papers beneath the mattress on the bed. He pulled them out and scanned the first one.

* * *

_I know she's out there. Waiting for me to come home. My other half. I can hear her in my dreams at night, calling to me past the echoing sounds of the demons in the mirror. God how I long to see her, but Kauffman won't let anyone visit me anymore. Says it might present too much of a risk to the 'progress' we've made in the last two months. I don't see what the big deal is, we both know I'm not getting out of here. I just need to see her again._

_The missing part of my soul calls out to her, and she responds in kind. One day, I hope that they'll let her in to visit me again. It's been so long._

* * *

While L decided to contemplate the meaning behind the first page, Damarik switched over to the second one and began to read, sitting down on the cot.

* * *

_It's been roughly two days since Rabbans came to see me last. Nurse Margaret said he's been out on vacation across the lake, visiting his family in South Vale. The other patients all know that he's an ass, but no one believes us. Even the good doctor thinks it's all in my imagination. If only the others would take a stand and say something! It's so frustrating to know what he does to us and gets away with._

_So last night, when Joe faked the seizures, two of us slipped out and picked up syringes from the infirmary down the hall while they took him to hydrotherapy. Oh...Rabbans is going to have a nasty surprise when he gets back from his vacation...and he'll have earned every little bit of it. The people in the mirror are congratulating me on my plan, they say it's one step closer in getting me home. I keep telling Kauffman I've no idea what they're saying, but once Rabbans is out of the way, Kauffman will be next. And I can hear the monsters rejoicing at the prospect of new blood. What a night that will be.  
_

* * *

"Jesus Christ this guy really was insane..." Damarik's thoughts crept out, stirring a meager grunt from L inside his mind.

_'Who are you to judge others? Maybe these mirror people and demons he's talking about...well, at least the demons, are the same ones that just tried to rip your arm off? Don't go calling people crazy before you understand their position. I'd think you of all people should know that.'_

"Yeah...I guess. Sorry L."

Silence returned between the two of them before Damarik set the first two pages down, picking up the third one.

* * *

My friends tell me I've got a shadow in their world. Someone who looks and acts just like me. He's even got voices he talks to as well. That brings me relief, to know that I'm not the only one. Mark across the hall in Room 3 said he'd been hearing whispers as of late. I think my friends are starting to build connections to him too. It's good, because then we won't need words to enact our plan when Rabbans gets back. We'll be able to talk to each other through our minds...telepathy I think it's called.

But I'm now interested in my doppelganger, as the demons have called him. The alternate me. I wonder what he's like? Maybe everything that I'm not? That'd be the most suggestible answer, but it's probably a lot deeper than that. In any case, I figured I wouldn't tell Kauffman about that, and made sure Marius won't either. He's got a bad habit of running our mouth when it should be left shut. Oh well...the sedatives are kicking in, I think I'm gonna go to bed now.

Goodnight me. See you tomorrow. Be ready for Rabbans...

* * *

Setting the last paper down, Damarik sat down on the bed in the small room, taking his guitar bag off. He turned it around, looking at the straps. The creature had bit straight through one of them, the other had been damaged by it's claws. Opening the bag up, he pulled out the guitar, looking it over. The neck had been cracked in the fall, and the body had caved in when he'd landed on it. Giving it a strum, two of the strings snapped and flew off of their pegs. But the hollow notes that reverberated inside the body rattled something loose. With the two middle strings gone, it was easy to reach inside and withdraw the item that had fallen.

"Well...I fuck up my guitar, and what's my consolation prize? A shiny rock. What the Hell is this bullshit?" He asked, turning the stone over and over in his hand. It was ruby red, about the size of a penny, and had the symbol for Leo etched into one side in gold markings. Putting the guitar back in the bag, he turned the rock over and over in his hand again, the gloomy light from out in the main hallway showing through the barred window in the door that Damarik could make out what appeared to be veins running through the stone.

"Another useless item...though Leo is my sign..." He shrugged, putting it into his jeans pocket. With a sigh, he put the guitar bag on the floor and collapsed backwards onto the mattress.

_'You seem tired and frustrated. If you'd like, I can keep a watch out while you get some sleep. I should have an answer to the first page of those three by morning.'_

"Well, first off, how would you feel if you'd nearly been kil...oh, right. Sorry. Anyway, how can you tell what time it is? There's no windows in this part of the building...the only light is coming from the beat up lamp in the hallway...and my cellphone clock stopped working right after the car crash." He pulled it out of his coat, looking at it. Sure enough, the display still read 5:15 pm.

_'Natural sense of time. Get some rest. If anything stirs out in the hall, I'll take care of it.'_

"Somehow, I don't doubt that..." he thought out loud, closing his eyes and rolling over.


	4. The Tale of a Hero

_"Close your eyes, look deep in your Soul. Step outside yourself and let your mind go. Frozen eyes stare deep in your mind as you Die. Close your eyes and forget your name. Step outside yourself and let your thoughts stray. As you go insane, you go insane."  
_

_Lyrics to the song "Seasons in the Abyss" by: Slayer, Copyright in 1990 to Slayer and Def American Records.  


* * *

_

_'I dreamed that night. A sad and lonely dream. Locked inside the prison that was my mind, there was no escape. Visions of her kept haunting me. Always twirling around and round like some carousel gone insane. Always reminding me of the mistake I'd made.'_

_'Seriously man...just give it up. She's not coming back. No matter how hard you try to keep her here.'_

_-No...you balked that chance when you said reality held nothing for you.-_

_'Shut up...why can't you leave me alone?'_

_'Who, me?'_

_'No...there's this nagging voice in the back of my head...'_

_'There you go, talking to yourself again. People are going to think you're insane.'_

_'Why not? I've got more than just that going on. Might as well add insanity to the list.'

* * *

_

He awoke in a cold sweat, his face plastered to the dank and filthy mattress beneath him. Checking his phone, he nearly cursed himself for it...the time still hadn't changed.

The display read a solid 5:15 PM.

"Son of a bitch, that's going to get to me."

_'You didn't sleep long. How do you feel?' _L's soothing tones came to him.

"Like shit. You should know, can't you read into my dreams?"

_'I don't like to. The realm of dreams should be a sacred place. So I only look if it really troubles you. This one, didn't seem too bad.'_

Sitting up, Damarik immediately felt the lancing pain of the wound inflicted on him in previous hours. His shoulder burned like red hot pokers were etching words into his very bones. They spoke of pain, torment and anguish. Rocking back and forth with his hand pressed to his shoulder, he compressed the wound, getting the worst of the pain over and done with. Letting go, the release hit him almost instantly. He was able to move his shoulder around without too much trouble.

_'You really like inflicting pain on yourself, don't you?'_

"No...but if you get it done with quick, it'll hurt less later on."

_'If you say so.'_

Picking up his things, Damarik loaded the demolished guitar onto his left shoulder, stowing his knife, the tag, his phone and lighter, all in his pockets. The last thing on the list was the trusty golf club, which sat by the door. Swinging it up and over his left shoulder, he kept a tight grip on it as he opened the door into the dimly lit hallway.

Things were still quiet in the sanitarium. As dead as it had been when he'd gone to sleep. The dead body of the beast lay just on the other side of the door, it's tail stuck in the frame, holding it open.

"Looks good..." D whispered to himself.

_'About as good as a death sentence if you ask me.'_

"Well, thanks for your input, oh consoling one." He snarked back.

Exiting back into the main hall of the west wing, Damarik pulled the map out of his back pocket. He unfolded it, lighting the darkness with his trusty Zippo.

"Okay...so, I can't say for certain, but unless you've deciphered anything about Mr. K's mysterious letters, then there's no more clues pointing to this part of the building."

_'Speaking of which, I did come up with a plausible theory.'_

"Do tell."

Damarik leaned himself up against the wall, lighting up a cigarette from the Zippo. He couldn't wait to hear this.

_'Well, the way he talks about this woman, she seems to either be a significant other, or a twin. Either way, he's very infatuated with her. Almost obsessed I'd be willing to bet. The feeling I get from the letter is one of death without her existence. If something were to happen to her, I don't think he would've been able to continue on.'_

"You got all that from a small letter?"

_'You forget, I can pick up on subtle hints that you and your human senses miss.'_

"Always gotta bring the 'human' part into it, don't you?" He spoke from behind the Newport, smoke pooling the air in front of him.

He felt a mental shrug.

"Okay...so, does this chick have anything to do with us?"

_'Doubtful. But, who knows? Maybe by letting him see her, it could mean that she's somewhere close by. Perhaps even right down the street somewhere. Though, it could be that she's miles away. It might reveal to us the next part of something if we find her.'_

"I thought you wanted to get me into the hospital. So why are we all of the sudden a 'part of something'?"

_'You know as well as I do that creatures like that monster from last night shouldn't rightfully exist. There's something supernatural at work here, and whatever it is, I believe we're caught up in it, whether or not we want to be.'_

Damarik sighed heavily.

"Okay...so we find her. What does that prove?"

_'__I don't know yet. I need more information to solve the next step.'_

"Then, let's get looking. Think the front door's still locked?"

_'Only one way to know for sure.' _L returned as Damarik stubbed out what was left of the cigarette.

Damarik made his way back to the main hall, now well aware of the pit in the floor before the main hall. He carefully reached out for the side door, which according to the map was the West Solarium. Twisting the handle, he found it opened with little trouble. Slowly, he edged across the small gap in the floor between the hall and the door, stepping into the room. There was light in here too, albeit dim, just as the rest of the building. Here, there was a record playing, lilting a sad tune. Damarik strode over to it, looking at the antiquated player. The machine seemed to be fairly new, considering how old it obviously was, a thick layer of dust lying on top of the box that held the mechanism inside.

Stopping the needle, Damarik picked up the record, turning it over in his hands. It was barely legible, but there was something written on the label tape on the rear of the disk.

"Melodies of Life...I thought I knew that tune."

_'Something familiar?'_

"It's the ending track to Final Fantasy Nine. If you wouldn't drift off while I was playing my games, you'd get to hear all the awesome music in these games. I mean, shit man. This song holds a lot of memories for me."

He set it back down with the back side up, replacing the needle.

A soft crooning melody issued forth as the record spun, but something cut the music...something was out of place.

"Aw, it doesn't have the lyrics on it."

_'They hold meaning as well to you?'_

"They're the reason I love this song."

_'How does it go?'_

"Like this..." Damarik said, starting the record over again.

* * *

_'Alone for a while...I've been searching through the dark. For traces of the love you left, inside my lonely heart. To weave by picking up the pieces that remain...Melodies...of Life. Love's Lost Refrain..._

_Our paths they did cross, though I cannot say just why. We met, we laughed, we held on fast, and then we said goodbye. And who'll hear the echoes of stories never told? Let them ring...out loud...till they unfold...'_

_'That's a pretty song. What's it from?'_

_'Final Fantasy.'_

_'Figures with you.'_

_'Hey come on now...even you said it was good.'_

_'Yeah, I guess. Kind of reminds you of the guys...especially Richard. I can't believe he's overseas.'_

_'He'll be back soon. September something or other. I don't remember the exact date.'_

_'Oh well. How does the next verse go?'  
_

_'In my dearest memories...I see you reaching out to me. Though you're gone...I still believe that you can call...out my name...'

* * *

_Damarik continued to sing along to the music. His voice rose and fell with the pitch of the song, never missing a single note or word. As the song came to an end, he could feel tears welling at the corners of his eyes.

_'Wow...that song really must have meaning for you. I haven't seen you cry in over seven years. Not since recently...and even that took a lot to get you going. Are you sure you're okay?'_

"Yeah...I'm fine. Just a little sentimental. It reminds me so much of her."

_'I can imagine. That's pretty much the story right there, isn't it?'_

"Don't remind me."

Just as Damarik finished his sentence, a faint scream issued forth from the building.

"What the hell? Where did that come from...better yet, who?"

_'I don't know...it sounded female though.'_

"You think it's the girl?"

_'The odds of that are astronomical...'_

"But?"

_'Let's go investigate.'_

Not needing a second suggestion, Damarik raced for the door that would lead him back out into the rotunda. As he pounded into the center of the atrium, the scream came again.

"Shit, this place echoes so much I can't get a fix on it..."

_'It didn't come from behind us...so it's either ahead in the east wing, or upstairs...'_

"Well...let's see..." Damarik quickly unfolded the map from his pocket again, Zippo in hand and lit.

"East Wing is the Female Wards...You think we'd be that lucky?"

_'Worth a shot.'_

Without a second more hesitation, Damarik folded the map up on the run, Zippo back in pocket and tore off into the east wing. Laid out in reverse of the west wing, directions came naturally from the previous night's exploration. He came barreling through the door into the female wards, lighter held high.

"So, which way? Which fucking way?" He asked himself frantically.

The scream came again, straight through the doors ahead of him. As he pushed through, he came face to face with another of the monsters from the previous evening. Not even bothering, he clubbed it once in the head as he ran past, turning the corner...to find a dead ended hallway.

"Shit! What the hell?" He ducked into the nearest open room. The map labeled this one as the Fifth Female Dorm. The scream came once more, close by. "What do you think?"

_'I'd guess Female Seclusion.'_

"It looked like a dead end from the hallway..."

_'Did you see the wall up close?'_

"Well, no..."

_'I get the feeling that whoever is screaming doesn't have much time left. Go. Now.'_

"Fuck me..." He cursed, pushing back out into the hallway, only to meet with a surprise he wasn't sure he wanted to call pleasant or horrifying...

The monster lay on the ground, completely skinned where it stood. Pus and blood stained the ground along it's outline...but that wasn't what caught his attention. A thin line of red intermingled with yellow could be seen, leading towards the wall where the door to Female Seclusion was supposed to be located. Not thinking twice, he ran for it, only to see that the door was there. In fact, it had been ripped from it's hinges, the mottled grayish tan of the door blending in with the wall it'd been laid up against.

Beyond the portal, there were five more doors. Each of them remained closed, but from the middle issued a pounding, like someone had been trapped inside. It wasn't consistent, but it was there.

"Help!" Came a muffled cry.

"She's there!" Damarik ran over to the middle door. "Hello?!"

"Is someone out there?! Get Me Out Of Here! Quick!"

Reaching down for the door handle, he nearly kicked the door when he saw that it was missing. He bent down to look into the hole, lighter shining light onto a thin, almost slit like hole. Quickly grabbing the knife from his belt, he flicked it open. It fit perfectly.

"What are the fucking odds again L?"

The knife turned in the door with a click as the bolt released. As soon as it did, a nauseating stench issued forth from the open doorway, along with a flying body. It went tumbling across the room against the wall where he'd just come from. Not wanting to waste time, Damarik peered inside the doorway, seeing what had thrown it.

If the monsters before had been horrible, this creature was deathly sickening.

It stood upon five spindly legs, like a spider, but it's upper body was like one of the beasts that had been roaming the halls. Except this thing had hands...or claws, as it were. Where all the pustules had been on the creatures, it was covered in open sores, as if all of the boils had been ruptured. It's tail, unlike the others, was one solid mass of black flesh, curving up and over it's head in to halt in a whip-like ending. This beast still lacked eyes, but looked no less dangerous that the others.

Almost on reflex, Damarik shut the door again, locking it with his blade. He pulled the knife out as the beast could be heard charging the door from the other side. Ducking back and praying that whoever had been in there was able to get out of the way, Damarik took cover as the door came flying off it's hinges, puncturing into the wall above where the body had been flung like a rocket propelled missile from hell. The monster came through the door, hunching over to fit it's massive height underneath the upper frame.

"Shit...this is bad..." D cursed to himself as the monster's breathing snuffed out the flame on his lighter. Almost instantly, the creature seemed to lose track of him.

'What the hell?' He pondered as the monster sniffed around, trying to locate him.

_'It's attracted to light! Keep the flame out and we might make it out alive!'_

Looking up, Damarik was able to discern from the glow of the oozing sores that this creature seemed to be lacking the ear holes and surgical staples that held them on.

"I think you're right L..." He whispered.

The monster took a hulking step forward on it's spindly legs. Damarik had to duck underneath to avoid being hit by it's body, but that at least afforded a good chance to grab the club from underneath the straps on his guitar, having slung it there after noting the last dead monster. He slowly withdrew the weapon, not sure of how good it would be against this beast, but ready to fight if it came down to it. The creature seemed to twitch momentarily, but continued standing there, menacingly.

Just then, another motion caught the corner of his eye.

In the dim glow of the monster's wounds, the body that had been tossed moved slightly. It pushed up on it's elbows, looking around the room.

"Don't...Move." Damarik spoke slowly to the figure by the wall.

They went to look up, only to run face first into the door that was jutting out of the wall where it had stuck. The vibrations and echo seemed to catch the horror's attention as it took a step towards the person.

_'It's got sensory hairs all over it's legs!' _L shouted in Damarik's head._ 'The slightest movement in the air, caused by sound or otherwise could give us away!'_

'Got it...' He thought back. It was too dangerous to move from where he was at the moment, so instead, Damarik tried to get the figure's attention. It worked, and they looked at him.

It was the girl they'd heard screaming. She must have been trapped in with the monster, and had been thrown out by it when he'd opened the door. She had short cropped hair, though color was indeterminable in the dark of the room. The monster's injuries gave everything a hazy red glow, but in that, he could see that she wasn't much younger than him, her face smooth and rounded with a slight tip at the end of her chin. She almost looked like something out of an anime, not only by her face, but in the way she dressed. A tight fishnet shirt covered her near bare arms, a wife-beater sheltering everything underneath. Her legs were clad in what appeared to be some knock off brand of Tripp pants, lacking all the flashy chains and straps. Combat boots adorned her feet with miniature flat-top grommets attached to the toe.

"It can sense light...and movement. Don't make either." He paused in between breaths. She seemed to understand, watching the monster continue to step over her savior. It slowly made it's way out of the room with a harsh growl, irritated that it had lost it's prey. In the instant before it left completely, the tail whipped around, quick enough to leave a divot in the wall where it hit, right above her head. She stifled a scream, but didn't move until Damarik gave the signal, the monster having left towards the main atrium.

"What the hell are these things?" She asked, getting up from underneath the door.

"I have no godly clue..." Damarik replied, walking over to her. He took her by the arm, noting a slight limp in her right leg as she stood up. "Are you okay? Looks like I got here just in time."

"Yeah...I'm fine. Got bruised up pretty good, but otherwise okay. Thanks...I didn't think anyone else was here."

"Do you often make a habit of calling for help when nobody is around?"

She seemed to stutter at that, rubbing the back of her head.

"Never mind, it's good that you did. Otherwise, who knows what might have happened."

He led her back into the room where she'd been trapped, noting a bed and a small candle, illuminating the confined space.

"Jeez...how the hell did you manage to get stuck in here with something that big?"

She looked around, a bit confused.

"It was a lot bigger in here a few moments ag..." Her sentence was interrupted in a harsh cough as she doubled over, taking to her knees while clenching her stomach. Blood began pooling at the sides of her mouth the longer the fit went on.

Damarik quickly picked her up and set her on the bed, reaching for the last of his medical bottles. He unscrewed the lid and handed it to her, watching her chug it between coughs.

"It doesn't taste the best, but it'll fix you up good." He spoke softly.

"Thanks..." She replied, wiping her mouth off after the drink was gone. She tossed the bottle to the ground, collapsing backwards onto the mattress.

"So...you got a name?" Damarik asked.

"Stephanie. And you?"

"Damarik...most call me D for short. It's kind of a tongue tie."

"Weird name...oh well. So...what brings you here?"

Damarik shrugged.

"I was driving down the interstate when I flipped my Jeep. Walked down the road trying to find someone to help...found a huge pit in the direction I'd come from, turned around, walked the other way...and here I am."

She shook her head.

"No, I mean the loony bin. Only crazy people come here."

"Ah..." he started..."I guess you'd want to call it something like a mental nudge of sorts." Damarik could feel L chuckling slightly.

He was about to ask why she'd come when she put a hand to her head, eyes closing. Acting quick, Damarik put a hand on her chest, relaxing when he felt her soft, easy breathing. She'd just passed out.

_'So...here's an interesting one.'_

"You think she's the girl we're looking for?"

_'Doubtful. Her mind feels just as confused about this place as you are.'_

"Well...scratch one for intuition, and chalk up one for me."

_'Don't get too cocky. You didn't really do anything. All you did was unlock the door and let that inhuman creature free.'_

"Yeah, but if I hadn't, she'd probably be painting the floor a real nice shade of red right about now, so stuff it." Damarik shot back.

_'All right, take it easy. I didn't mean anything by that. You did save her after all...'_

"So...what now oh mighty scaly one? Where to next?"

_'Well, I believe our next move should be to let her rest, then ask her a little bit about what she knows when she wakes up.'_

Damarik nodded, unholstering the guitar bag to sit up against the wall. He leaned over to the candle and blew it out, enveloping them in complete darkness. As he got as close to comfortable as possible, he felt something digging into his side. Pulling the storage tag out of his coat pocket, he thumbed the Zippo back on, looking it over.

"Think she knows anything about this?"

There was a mental shrug.

_'Who knows? It's best to wait for now. We can discuss that when you wake up. Sleep well little one.'_

"Yeah...if that's possible..."

* * *

_-You can't get her out of your head...and you never will. Face it. You screwed up.-_

_'Why can't you just leave me alone? Who are you anyway?'_

_-You know who I am...you know me very well.-_

_'I'd never associate myself with an asshole like you...'_

_-Do you really believe that?-_

_'What?'_

* * *

Damarik awoke to the damp feel of the cold ground beneath him, and a violent shaking motion. He turned over, seeing Stephanie gripping his shoulder, rousing him out of sleep. Her face bore a frightened expression, but it faded as he woke.

"Are you all right? You were shouting in your sleep."

"Huh? Oh yeah...bad dream." He shook his head to relieve himself of the feel of sleep.

Damarik sat up, finding the candle had been lit again, his Zippo lying next to the holder. In the glow from the flame, he could see her face, tinged with worry, wrapped in a cloak of blue hair, tipped black at the ends. The thought of asking something pertaining to carpet and drapes momentarily crossed his mind at the sight of that, but a good mental thwack brought him back to reality.

"So...got a question for ya." He started.

_'Damarik...'_

"What's up?" She asked.

"Well..."

_'Don't you dare...'_

He pulled the storage tag from his pocket.

"You know anything about an Allen Storage center around here?"

_'You're lucky.'_

She seemed to think on that for a moment as he sat there, holding the tag out. She picked it up, turning it over and over again, handing it back to him.

"Well...I don't know the name, but there is a storage depot down on Low Street, between Toluca and Cielo Avenue...that might be it."

He nodded, putting it away again before standing up.

_'So then, we have our next destination I suppose.'_

"For now, but is it going to be..." He cut short mid-sentence, seeing Stephanie staring at him.

"Who're you talking to?"

"Oh, just thinking out loud is all. I have a habit of doing that." He played off, hoping she'd take it.

Stephanie shrugged, sitting down on the mattress again.

"Well, if you're planning on going there, you mind if I tag along? I may not be much for fighting big things like...whatever that was, but I know some Tae-Bo...so I think I can handle myself."

Damarik had to sigh internally...Tae-Bo? She was something else.

"Sure I guess. I didn't really plan on leaving you alone again."

"Well then, let's get going."

"Are you feeling okay?" Damarik asked, still feeling the sting of the bite wound in his shoulder.

"Yeah, I'm fine." She replied quickly.

"All right then..." He said, slinging the guitar bag over his shoulder again. "Let's get going then."


	5. Explanations of Reasoning

_"I...I Was the Lonely One. Wondering What Went Wrong. Why Love...Had Gone...And Left Me Lonely. I...I Was so Confused. Feeling Like I'd Just Been Used. Then You Came...To Me...and My Loneliness Left Me..."  
_

_Lyrics to the song "Even the Nights are Better" by: Air Supply, Copyright in 1982 to Air Supply and Harry Maslin (Producer).  


* * *

_

They had just attempted the front doors again, to no avail. The wired-glass windows still resisted all attempt to break them, even with heavier objects being used this time around. Damarik stood back, heaving breaths from the exertion.

"I don't get this place...the door was unlocked when I came in...and I sure as hell didn't lock it behind me. I haven't come across anyone but you...and I'm really starting to get the feeling that we're meant to find something else here..."

Stephanie chuckled slightly at his frustration as he sat down with a heavy sigh.

"Well, I could've told you that."

"So why didn't you?" He asked.

She shrugged, walking over to the wall between the office and the hallway, leaning up against it with arms crossed.

"Okay...so here's what I got. I've been in town long enough to figure some stuff out."

Damarik nodded, picking himself up and sitting down across the hallway on an old burnt out couch.

"See...I got here...jeez, I guess three days ago. I can't tell. But...everything I've found so far has led to something else...puzzles, mysteries. It's like some bad horror movie. Our big ugly buddy that you saved me from? He's been chasing me through this building for a bit...but when you showed up, he was different...not what I saw when I first met him."

"What do you mean?"

She shrugged again, tossing some hair behind her ear.

"When I first came across big bad and ugly, he looked like something out of my worst nightmare."

"As if he still doesn't?"

She shook her head.

"No...in fact, he's not. Originally, he was this spidery thing with large front arms that ended in some kind of surgical knife...like, they were part of him. And that's not it, his tail was like a scorpion, but instead of a stinger, it had this weird bulb on it that shot some disgusting gunk...it'd eat the floor in less than five seconds."

Damarik's mind started wondering about that.

"But when you showed up...it grew into that reptilian thing with spider legs...and that whip tail. Almost like it tuned in on you and what YOU might be afraid of."

"Well, you're right there, partially. I'm very fond of dinosaurs and the like..." He started, remembering the boiling pustules of the smaller monsters. "But...I'm kinda freaked about catching some viral death disease...so I guess maybe that's why the smaller ones I've seen are covered in something out of the Black Plague."

"So that explains those things..." She pondered.

"You've seen em too?"

"Yeah...they're another thing that transformed since I met them. They were smaller bug creatures with all sorts of tentacles and whatnot coming out of their asses."

Damarik nodded, remembering the flailing mass of black tendrils that seemed to come off of his horrors.

"It's all most like they're here to remind us of things we're afraid of." He thought out loud.

_'That does make a plausible explanation.'_ L chimed in.

"But...if those are manifestations of what we're afraid of...then I've only just begun to meet the family..." Damarik hung his head, a hand to the forehead.

"Got some nasty skeletons in the closet do we?" Stephanie laughed.

"Like you wouldn't believe."

"Do tell. Come on, it's not like we've anything better to do right now."

_'Aside from looking for the way out of here...whatever it may be...'_ L returned.

Stephanie looked around oddly for a moment, putting a finger to her ear as if she had something stuck in it.

"You hear something?" She asked.

"Nope." Damarik got comfortable. 'Oh come on, it's not as if it's going to kill us to tell her a bit. I think she deserves to know who she's getting mixed up with for the moment.'

_'Just be light on the details...'_

Stephanie came over and sat down next to Damarik, folding her legs as he lit up a cigarette. He offered her one, and to his delight, she took it, torching hers with the Zippo.

"So...Damarik...tell me. What haunts your closet?"

He laughed a bit, settling back with another drag on the cancer-stick.

"For starters...I'm freshly single again."

She nodded, almost as if understanding.

"The relationship fell through...hit me pretty hard after the first three nights of sleeping alone. Kinda went numb to it at first, but hell if I didn't feel it after that. I thought she was the one, regardless of whether or not we swore off marriage."

Stephanie reclined, kicking her feet out, getting comfortable.

"So yeah...before that, lost a sister to one in a million birth defects...I used to believe it was my fault...I was too worried about my birthday trip to Disney World that year...but what do you want? I was only ten. Even still, it's a sore subject. Now that I've got another little sister, I'm doing my best to be the brother I couldn't to the first, but I'm too much like my dad. I worship privacy and silence...and when I don't get it...I kind of flip. So I feel like shit about that."

"Well...at least you're trying." She retorted sharply. "You could just be some big dickhead who didn't care at all."

Damarik gave a dry chuckle. "Sometimes, it feels like that to me."

She shook her head.

"Nah...even if it seems that way, you're probably still doing good. Just some kind of self criticism deal. I've been through that. What else you got?"

He looked at her, shrugged, then sat back again.

"No more juicy details?"

"None that I feel safe letting you know."

"Huh. Figures." She huffed, dragging deep on the cigarette. "Then tell me a bit about this girl you split with. What was she like?"

"Now there's something I could write a story about." He started, taking off his hat and rubbing the thick hair beneath it. "Eyes like reflecting pools...deep enough you could get lost in them. A smile that'd out shine the sun. Great personality. Beautiful. Very cheerful most of the time...though heaven help ya if she got pissed."

"Sounds like a keeper." Stephanie ashed the smoke, dragging on it again with a downcast look.

"Yeah...makes me wonder what she ever saw in me."

"Why do you say that?" She asked.

"Well...look at me. I've never really considered myself all that good looking...I'm thinner than a flagpole, my face curves to the right from a car accident I had when I was four, my right knee is screwed up from the military...I get migraines bad enough to incapacitate me...and I've a really nasty temper. Not exactly high quality boyfriend material." He sunk into the couch a little further with each statement, dropping his hat back on and angling the brim down over his eyes.

"That and you seem kind of spacey." She remarked. "Like you've always got something else on your mind."

"I guess you could say that...though if you've picked up on that already, then the rest might as well be an open book read for ya."

She didn't reply to that, just idly puffed what was left of her smoke.

"I dunno...I guess I've always felt like I don't belong. I never had a lot of friends, so I was always off in my own world. Had to make my own friends as a kid. When I started getting with real friends, I just kinda shied away and kept to myself."

"You too huh?"

He looked over at her, stubbing his cigarette. She looked about as happy as he did, her face half hidden behind her hair.

"I was always the problem kid. Getting into trouble, breaking things...my mom was an abusive bitch who couldn't get enough of talking shit to me. My dad tried the best he could to make things better, but in the end, he left." Stephanie huffed, irritation tinging the sadness belying her voice.

"And here I was beginning to think you were the good girl."

"Who me? Hell no...I did drugs every chance I got...I was drinking by the time I was nine...smoking at twelve...Hell, I'd had sex at thirteen, though it wasn't how I'd figured it would be."

"The guy didn't do it for ya?"

"Raped me is more like it." She spat.

Damarik saw her visibly cringe. The part of him that was always in the back of his mind just felt the need to reach out and give the girl a hug, but he felt it would probably just cause problems. Even if he was a bleeding heart.

"That's something we share. I was molested at fourteen by some douche bag. He got my best friend back then too...plus a few others. The fucker's rotting in jail for the rest of his life now though."

"Well...aren't you lucky? I had to deal with him until I was fifteen. I ran away from home...stayed with a few friends. Never graduated school." She seemed to sink into the couch as he had, deflating a bit with every new confession. "And why the hell am I telling you all this?"

"People find it easy to tell me their life story apparently. It's always been a consistent thing."

She got up at that, turned, and walked slowly into the main rotunda with her arms wrapped around herself.

_'Maybe this would be a good time for one of your psychological remedies?'_ L suggested.

'I don't know...she seems kind of strung out...if you get me. I don't want to do anything to upset her.' D returned in thought.

_'A hug does wonders you know. Sometimes, it's all anyone needs.'_

Damarik thought on that for a second, standing up from the couch to follow after her. He wandered into the rotunda with her, watching as she stood in the center of the ancient tiling on the floors, looking up through the glass dome in the second floor roof.

"You okay?" He asked, putting a hand on her shoulder.

She didn't answer at first, still looking up at the fog filled sky.

"You know...sometimes, I wonder if I was meant to suffer." She started. Her gaze came down slowly, leveling on the floor. Her hand snaked up to meet his on her shoulder as she continued. "With all the shit I've been through, you'd think I'd be one mentally whacked fuckjob...but I'm not."

"What do you mean?"

"I've always been the calm and collected one. Rarely ever cry...hardly ever get mad...and even when I do...it never lasts long."

"That's not a bad thing...believe me."

She shook her head, fingers gripping his hand as if he were her last hold on sanity.

"It's like I can't feel anymore...but the grief and guilt...it just kinda pools up. And then...it vanishes. I can't remember what it's like to really be happy or mad...the last time I loved anyone. None of it. All I can remember now is fear and pain."

Damarik could sort of relate to that. Being a bit emotastic himself from time to time, he was familiar with those feelings.

Without warning, Stephanie turned around and brought herself straight to him, face against his chest, arms drawn tight between them. All he could do was wrap his own around her, hoping it would comfort her a bit. Her feelings...sorrow, anger, regret...Damarik could feel them...being a bit empathic himself. They were welling up...true. But as she said...he could feel them ebbing away as well.

It wasn't until that moment when the two were entwined, that Damarik could feel his own emotions coming up to the surface, mirroring hers.

"God I haven't felt this alone since before I left home..." She whispered.

"I can sympathize there..." He returned softly.

"I know we should get going...but...can we just stay here like this for a moment? You won't think me creepy or anything?"

Damarik shook his head.

"You take all the time you need." He answered.

_'Being a bit touchy-feely with the new girl, aren't we?'_ L piped up from a corner of his mind.

'Oh be quiet. You're the one who suggested it.' Damarik shot back.

_'Just remember...we need to find a way out of here soon. I don't like the idea of spending the rest of our life trapped in a crumbling building.'_

Damarik mentally nodded, running the flats of his hands up and down her back. Stephanie looked up, locking eyes with his.

Something about them seemed so familiar...like he was looking into a mirror...yet at the same time, hers foretold a life completely different from his. What she'd experienced, he knew he could never truly relate to, but felt the same way about his life towards her. He watched as she sunk her face into the crook of his arm, running a hand through her hair gently.

Time seemed to slow for the two as they stood there, almost existing outside of reality itself.

Then, with a large echoing boom, the doors to the west wing slammed opened. The demon creature on spider legs hauled itself through the portal, and as both watched in fear, the monster flung the corpses of two of it's smaller brethren to the sides of the room. Acting quickly, Damarik grabbed hold of Stephanie's hand, dragging her towards the dark hallway where the doctor's office was. He rattled the handle, finding it once again locked, turning to the door across the hallway. Also locked. With only one room left between safety and the monster, he bolted to the door of the Patient Belongings room, kicking it open. Dragging her through, Damarik shut the door, barricading it with one of the closest empty shelves. As he started stacking boxes and things on the shelves, he noticed Stephanie come from the rear of the room, backing up against him.

"Something wrong?" He asked.

"Th...there...there's a mirror in here..." She stuttered.

Turning around, he left the shelving, walking between the two columns of old rotting boxes, and indeed, found a mirror on his left.

"What's wrong with a mirror?"

"You Don't Understand..." She started, backing even further towards the barricaded door. "The reflection...something's not right about it."

Damarik looked at himself in the dim fluorescent lighting of the room, his reflection staring back at him as plain as day.

"I don't see anything up with it."

"What?" She asked, her back pressed fully against the barricade, eyes wide in fear.

"My reflection is fine." He went up to the mirror, tapping on it.

"Don't Do That!" She yelled.

"Why not?" He asked back.

"The mirrors aren't safe here..."

"What do you mean? What is wrong with the mirrors?"

_'Maybe it's something only she can see...' _L provided.

"The me in the mirror...isn't me." She protested. "It's something freaky...something...not right. Like some wicked side-show mirror."

"What, like another monster?" He questioned further.

"Worse."

Getting irritated with the girl's puzzling behavior, he moved her out of the way so he could continue the barricade.

"You're just going to stay here?" She asked.

"Yeah..." he returned, continuing his work. "I figure if we wait for that thing to go away, we can continue to look for a way out of here safely. Either that...or it'll eventually bash down the front door and we can get out that way."

She shook her head violently.

"I'm not staying in a room with a mirror!"

"Oh for god's sake girl, it's either the mirror or the monster. Which do you prefer?" He snapped.

She went silent, making herself look as small as possible as she stepped away from him.

_'Good work genius. You just frightened the scared girl even more than she is already.'_ L retorted.

'Quiet damn it. I'm trying to work here.'

"Then...maybe I'll show you what's so bad about the mirrors..." He heard her say as he continued to bar the door.

"Yeah...you do that."

No sooner had the words left his mouth did the room begin to dim, the lights flickering as if they were dying. Immediately dropping the box of files he'd just been holding onto, he ran down the column of shelves to see Stephanie reaching out to the mirror, her reflection a twisted, evil and horrifying version of herself. The room in the mirror had become like the building had when the siren had gone off, but instead of staying where it was like a mirror should have, it began to seep out into the room, overtaking the walls and boxes, shelves and cabinets...

The longer she stood there with her hand to the mirror, the worse the room got. What looked like veins pulsed under the floors, a black substance creeping along the walls like oil.

"Steph...you can stop now...I think I get it..." Damarik said slowly, lighting the Zippo with his eyes on the oily liquid as it crossed the ceiling. When she didn't respond, he went over to her, putting a hand on her shoulder. Her gaze was lax, eyes half lidded...staring at her horrible reflection. To his alarm, he didn't appear in the mirror as the reflected world turned into the room they had just been in. The lights could be seen through the glass, shining into the darkness of the enclosure he found them in now. He'd had enough.

Forcing her hand from the mirror, he picked her up underneath the arms and knees, dragging her away from the glass. She seemed comatose, her face pale in the light from the glass.

"What do you think's going on here L?" He asked.

_'I have only a guess...and it might not even be right.'_

"I'd like to hear it."

_'Perhaps this girl is an __Eisoptrophobic...'_

"That would be..." He asked with a hint of irritation.

_'She's afraid of her reflection...maybe seeing her reflection in this place brings about her own world of that nightmare we visited earlier yesterday...but this is just a guess.'_

"So why is she catatonic?"

_'Some phobias are so intense that they can induce a state similar to paralyzation...ever hear the term Scared Stiff?'_

"Fucking great..." Damarik cursed to himself. He turned around, sitting her down against the back wall before returning to the door...which had become unblocked. "What the hell? Where'd all my boxes go?!"

He ran to the door, looking around desperately for his barricade, only to now notice that all the shelves in the room were empty, decript and falling apart...not a piece of cardboard to be found anywhere.

_'Not like they would've done much good against holding that thing out anyway...'_ L retorted.

"Maybe not, but at least they would've held it off for a few moments...long enough to find something to fight it with..."

_'I think you're being a bit too hopeful there.'_

"Shouldn't I be hopeful? I'd like to get out of here in one piece...and we're all out of medical supplies again. I gave her my last med. drink."

_'Perhaps you should try looking around in here a bit more. There has to be something we're meant to find.'_

"God I hate this puzzle bullshit." Damarik swore, starting to check the tops of the shelves. He stopped when his fingers hit something oddly metallic. Pulling it down, he found himself holding a small necklace, covered in trinkets. One bore the symbol of the Wiccan Trinity, three crescent moons...another held the pentacle wrapped in the phases of the moon. There was one that appeared to be some kind of tribal bird design set in opal, and yet one more that bore a cross covered in a celtic knot patterning around the inside border of the cross.

"Well...great. What the hell are we supposed to do with these?"

_'Your guess is as good as mine.'_

"Yeah...a lot of good those have been doing for us."

Just as he was about to pocket the necklace, a sound from the back of the room roused his attention. Stephanie stood at the end of the columns, looking at him very oddly.

"Good to see you're back among those of us with a functioning brain." He said, placing the necklace in his pocket.

"Okay...now I know you're freakin weird..."

"What?" He asked, before realizing...she must've heard the conversation with L.

"Who were you talking to?" She asked, a quizzical look on her face, tinged with fear.

He turned away.

"I can't say really."

"Bullshit." She called.

"It's hard to explain."

"Is this one of those skeletons you didn't want to cover with me? That you really are a fucking psychopath? What are you gonna do with me, huh?" She started visibly panicking, trying to find something to defend herself.

Damarik sighed, placing a hand to his forehead.

"No...it's not some skeleton...and I'm not crazy. I told you that before."

"So who were you talking to just now?"

_'Me, young lady.'_ L responded before Damarik had a chance to.

Stephanie looked around the room, just as puzzled as the last time.

"I Knew I wasn't hearing shit...who the hell are you?!" She yelled.

_'Calm yourself. I'm not going to hurt you, I promise you that.'_ Damarik could feel L's soothing abilities reaching out to calm the girl. It seemed to work almost instantly, and D offered up a silent thanks.

"Remember how I said I always felt like I didn't fit in?" He started. "He is why."

"He? He who?"

_'You may call me L, Miss Stephanie. And to explain who and what I am will require a bit of time. It's best if you just learn it as we go.'_

She didn't seem to take the idea at first, but with a slump of her shoulders, she resigned.

"Fine..."

"So...what now?" Damarik asked.

_'Take a look out the door...for starters.'_

Damarik returned to the portal, opening the door slowly. The hinges creaked in a god awful protest, as if they hadn't been used in many years. As he looked outside, there was a bright light coming from straight ahead of him.

"No fucking way..." He choked out. "The front door's open..."

_'I doubt it's going to be that simple...be very careful.'_ L cautioned the both of them.

Damarik made his way down the hallway into the rotunda, drawing the golf club from underneath the shoulder strap of the guitar bag, Stephanie on his heels. All seemed quiet...eerily quiet in fact. They inched closer to the front doors, step by step, until they were back outside in the night air. There were no stars or clouds in the sky, but a searing heat seemed to be emanating up from the concrete, as if a raging fire burned below. It was bearable, but only just, as they made their way down the front driveway of the sanitarium.

What once was Acadia Street was now nothing more than bare mesh fencing over an angry red pit, the basements of buildings across the streets visible beneath it, suspended in mid air over the crimson light. Damarik and Stephanie stopped on the sidewalk, unsure of whether or not to continue, only to have their minds decided when an ear splitting roar issued from the sanitarium.

The creature had followed them outside...and it was angry.

As Damarik drug Stephanie across the grating to the other side of the street, the monstrosity gave chase, whip tail and claws flailing about in the air around it. Just as Damarik was about to turn around and fight it though, the monster stopped upon the grating, as if frozen in place. In the next instant, it became wrapped in fangs and flesh as a creature the size of a whale came bursting through the grating, driving its fangs into the monster that had given chase.

Fear kicked in, and the two bolted down Toluca Avenue.

The intersection at Borden Street had given way to a massive hole, directing their flight northward towards Cielo Avenue. Pausing for a breath, Damarik took survey of the surroundings.

"Town hall...a lumber yard...god...which way do we go?" He asked no one in particular.

And in reply, the sound of screaming, twisting metal brought their attention back to Borden Street, to see the giant creature ripping up the mesh fencing that constituted the road in pursuit of them. Continuing down Borden Street, the two ran at a breakneck pace up the sidewalk, crossing over Midway Avenue and continuing onto Canyon Street, not daring to touch the metal for fear that the creature would come up underneath them. Finally, they reached another intersection...Koontz Street...

"Taco Shack...Greens Pharmacy...damn it I hate choices!" Damarik shouted.

_'Try the pharmacy...and make it quick...the thing isn't far behind!'_ L's voice rang out.

Ducking across the street, Damarik tried to open the doors...locked. Instantly, his eyes fell to a hole in the glass windows of the fast food restaurant. He took a running dive through the hole to avoid staying on the mesh too long, and hit the floor on the inside of the building. Stephanie crawled through seconds later, and the squealing metal sound died away.

Immediately, Damarik pulled Stephanie into the bathroom.

"Quick! Touch the mirror!" He shouted.

"No! It's Not Me!" She screamed in protest as he shoved her hand against the glass. Her body went stiff again, her gaze vacant once more, as the world around them shifted back to it's normal, dilapidated state.

Once she'd snapped out of it, they returned to the main lobby of the restaurant...only to meet an unexpected surprise...

"Tacos...or Tacos..." a voice rang out.

"This could take a while..." Another joined it. "Seriously, what are you thinking?"

"You're right...I should get a burrito too..." The first replied.

"Jesus Christ you're an idiot...there's no one here to make the food!"

Damarik stepped around the corner to the ordering aisle to see two figures standing in the projected light of the menus. One was tall, his curly hair matted against his cheeks...he appeared to be built like a tank, with a little extra armor plating in the gut. His counterpart was similarly built, but a little more cut in the arms. He was shorter, with a close cut hairdo...and his eyes scanned the menu with interest.

"Uh...hello?" Damarik called out. His hand still held the golf club, and his grip tightened as the two turned to face him.


	6. Manifestations of Voices and Demons

_"You May See Me As a Sinner. A Servant for Suffering. I Tore the Skins From the Liars. And Sent them Burning to the Sea. No Darkness For Us All. We Pray For Eternal Night. No Darkness For Us All. We Hope the Sun Will Never Shine."  
_

_Lyrics to the song "Sinner's Defeat" by: Mors Principium Est, Copyright in 2007 to Mors Principium Est and Listenable Records.  


* * *

_As Damarik and Stephanie came up to the Ordering Line, the two figures turned to face them.

The taller of the two bore tattoos all over his arms, most notable being a symbol of two S shapes, one forward, one reverse. The symbols were surrounded by what looked like dead tree branches that stemmed up his arm. On his opposite arm, he bore a ram's skull, though it held more demonic overtones than anything else. Across his knuckles were tattooed the roman numerals of one through ten. His curly black hair outlined his face, one of a child forced into adulthood, though his body spoke of vast amounts of fighting and physical labor.

The shorter one, however, seemed even more childlike in appearance, with a bright gleam behind his eyes and a shining smile that could've lit up even the darkest pits of Hell. He didn't quite look like all the lights were on upstairs, but through that guise, a heavy demeanor peaked through. His short shaved hair lay against his skull, the only physical attribute that set him apart from the other.

"Oh Hi there." the taller one spoke up.

"Hey...sorry to interrupt...we didn't know anyone was here." Damarik started.

"No, it's cool. Neither did we."

Damarik and the tall one eyed each other up for a moment before shaking hands cautiously.

"The name's Savage."

"D." he kept it short.

Savage looked to Stephanie, a devious glint in his smile.

"And who might this lovely thing be?" he asked.

"Stephanie..." she returned, unsure.

"So...do you think I should get the big enchilada mama taco...or maybe just the five alarm burrito?" the shorter, yet unnamed person spoke, his eyes once again glued to the menu.

Savage turned around and quickly cuffed him on the back of the head.

"For the last time...you're not getting any food here."

"Aw...but I wanted tacos."

"Zack...seriously. There's no one here to make them!"

"Zack huh?" Damarik asked.

"We call him Sasquatch."

"Why's that?" Stephanie dared.

Savage started laughing, waving a hand in front of him.

"You really don't want to know."

Zack walked out of the line with slumped shoulders, hefting himself down into a booth seat. Savage strolled over to him, sitting down beside him before motioning to the others to join them. As Damarik and Stephanie moved into the opposite side of the booth, Savage lit up a cigarette, tapping the initial ashes onto the table.

"So, what brings you to the lovely town?" He asked.

Damarik shrugged, not really wanting to explain his story again.

"I just woke up here about three, maybe four days ago." Stephanie offered. "What's your story?"

Savage inhaled the smoke, letting it go in small rings between pauses in his words.

"Me and my brother here were just wandering around downtown back home...and then here we are."

A moment passed between the four in silence...a little bit unnerving to Damarik as he sat there idly, trying to think of a way to break the uncomfortable atmosphere. Fortunately...he didn't need to as the situation seemed to get a bit more awkward...

"Dude...did you see that?" Sasquatch asked.

"What?"

"That guy...outside..."

Damarik jumped from his seat.

"What guy? He spun around quickly, drawing his golf club.

Sasquatch hopped over the back of the seat into the next booth, dislodged himself and then ran out the front door of the establishment. Everyone was quickly behind in a matter of seconds, and soon all four were back in the fog filled streets.

"Come Out You Bastard!" Damarik yelled.

Savage was looking around, his arms tense. He seemed a bit unsure of what was going on as he stepped forward onto the blacktop of the street, fists clenching and unclenching rapidly.

After what seemed like forever, Damarik lowered his club, slinging it back over his shoulder. He turned to face the rest of them as Savage and Sasquatch gave him an odd look.

"Why the fuck are you carrying that thing around?" Savage started cracking up.

Damarik's jaw nearly dropped at that.

"You mean you haven't seen anything weird or out of the ordinary here? No monsters, no...insane looking creatures and shit?" He shot back.

Savage shrugged and Sasquatch just gave him a strange, half what-the-fuck-dude look.

D just stood in silent awe with Stephanie giving both sides the wary eye.

"So...you gonna go golfing or you just carry that around for kicks?" Savage prodded.

Damarik growled slightly as he stalked back into the restaraunt, still holding the grip on the golf club. Stephanie followed at a slightly slower pace, none too sure of her rescuer's current attitude. D wasn't too sure himself. Even the helpful voice seemed a bit persuaded against his host at that point. He sat himself down in one of the booths, pulling the guitar bag off of his shoulders, opening it up.

The guitar sat in pristine condition inside the bag, against all known laws of physics and reality.

"So that's what's in that bag?" Stephanie asked as she came over.

"Yeah...but this is fucked up. It got smashed when I fell backwards fighting off a monster..." He toyed lightly with the steel wound strings that ran the length of the mahogany neck. Plucking one, it still held the proper standard tuning, almost perfectly.

"Doesn't look smashed to me."

"But it was..." Damarik insisted, pulling the dark Ruby from inside his jacket. "And I found this inside of it." The emblazoned golden Leo crest lit up and flashed for a second as his fingers brushed along it.

"Hey...I've got one of those too." She quickly dug her hands into her pockets, rifling through their depths to pull out an golden colored stone with a matching Leo crest. She set it down on the table next to his and he picked it up. Her's also flashed a glittery light from the crest when he touched it, but made no reaction to her.

"Ladies and Gentlemen...we have a puzzle." Savage's voice came from the front door. He sauntered over to them with his brother in tow. Both of them held out identical stones, one the symbol of Capricorn crested on a black Onyx, and one with Gemini engraved onto a solid Jade. Theirs responded to their owner's touch as Damarik's had to his, but Stephanie's stone remained quiet to her fingers.

Damarik shook his head in confusion.

"Well, this adds a whole new twist. Let me guess...your signs match your birthdays?" D asked.

Savage and Sasquatch nodded, but their female guest didn't.

"What about you Steph?" He met her gaze, and saw a deep seated fear...

"I can't remember..." She spoke barely above a whisper. Stephanie started slowly backing away from the table, hands across her mouth as if she'd said something she hadn't meant to.

_'Perhaps her memory was affected when she hit the wall. That was a pretty rough impact.' _L gave a mental suggestion.

'Maybe...' D responded in kind.

Everyone took their respective stones, save Stephanie, who let hers lay on the table.

"I don't think I should be carrying it. It seems to like you a lot more than me." She spoke to Damarik. He shrugged, picking it up and placing it in his pocket with the other one.

"So...if you don't mind me being so bold..." Savage started, "What where YOU two doing in the bathroom?" He snickered.

Damarik almost hauled off and punched Savage in the face, but caught himself mid jump from the table, settling back down.

"Actually, I DO mind you being that bold...and for your information, we were doing absolutely nothing that you'd believe if I told you." He seethed, the earlier event replaying in his mind as they looked at him like a common psychiatric ward escapee, regardless of how true that had been at the time.

"Go ahead. Try me." he prodded.

"Well...if you must know, we were traversing worlds through a portal effect that happens when She touches a mirror." Damarik put out.

Savage seemed to eye him up, looking like he was about to cut up laughing again. But instead, he spoke.

"Okay...so lets say I believe you. What does this 'other world' look like?" He asked.

Damarik shrugged.

"Hell."

Savage nodded, and had to punch Sasquatch in the shoulder to keep him from laughing.

"Okay...so let's see it then."

Stephanie's eyes went wide.

"I'm not touching another mirror." She quickly spit out.

"And I won't force her to do something she doesn't want to." Damarik added.

Savage looked at them skeptically, as if to say 'Then I don't believe you.' He motioned to his brother and they both stepped back outside. Damarik could hear them talking back and forth, though what was said couldn't be made out clearly. He picked up on the words 'Crazy' and 'Dickhead'...two things that made him want to run out there and continue the decking he was about to issue to Savage earlier, when they both came back in.

"What was that about?" D questioned.

"Nothing important. So...where you headed?" Savage asked.

"Allen Storage. Wherever the fuck that's at." Damarik withdrew the storage tag.

Sasquatch took the tag, turned it over a few times, and handed it to Savage.

"Doesn't look like much of a clue for ya." Sasquatch quipped.

Damarik shook his head.

"No, but we found it inside the sanitarium down the road when the world went to hell after she felt the neccessity to prove me wrong by touching a mirror." He sighed heavily, shouldering the guitar bag with the now saintly guitar once again safely tucked inside it. Just as he'd finished doing up the zipper, something began to buzz in his ear. He stuck a finger in it, thinking perhaps a bug might've flown inside, yet it got louder.

"Hey, you okay dude? Starting to look kinda pale there." Savage's voice was slightly muffled by something.

All at once, Damarik's world started to slow down around him. As he watched, the faces of those with him in the restaraunt ground to a halt as a pervasive darkness crept at the corners of his vision. It intruded upon his sight, the buzzing sound fading away to be replaced by what resembled an odd, reverberating echoing ghostly moan. It would repeat every couple of seconds, and in the darkness that encompassed him, Damarik found himself standing up, full alert.

As the world around him began to come back into focus, the first thing he saw different...was that he was home again.

But this wasn't right...in it's own sense.

"I'm...back on Patterson Street...in Lansford." He spoke to himself, looking at the attic that used to be his bedroom. It was night, and the orange lamp from the streetlight outside the window cast a hazy glow on everything in the room.

_'This is a place I do not recognize...'_ L stated firmly, though his voice wandered as if he was exploring the room on his own.

As it seemed, a rather dark shadow stepped away from Damarik's body, a vague quadrupedal form taller than he was that examined everything with the tip of it's nose.

"I lived here before I realized who you really where. I guess when I was here, you were still being blocked from most of my senses...so it'd make sense that you don't know where we are." D's voice carried in the tall room. As he stepped around the clutter on the floor, he took a good look around. "My god, how this brings back memories..."

Damarik stood at the top of the stairwell that led to the room. He turned around, facing the room once more. There, across from him...was an old toychest, topped with shelves, it's chalkboard doors still remained intact on the front of it, slightly angled upwards. The shelves were littered with books and toy figurines, mostly from that old Jurassic Park movie he'd loved since he was a kid. The floor was covered in things, so much that if you took a step forward, you'd probably break something. Board games and books, action figures, Lego sets...the works. Anything you could've imagined a young boy wanting...lay on that floor.

The bed was up against the right wall, next to the half-hallway that led to a window overlooking the front of the house, and the street outside. Opposite the bed on the other side of the hall, was a television stand. Video games, a TV and a VCR lurked amongst more figures and model kits. A few stuffed animals lay here or there, and a day bed was set up much like a couch in front of the stand. Controllers, some working, some broken, lay littered about the makeshift couch and floor nearby.

_'My...you seemed to have quite a lot back then.'_

"When you lived the way I did...all of this was just a way to keep you occupied...and out of the parent's hair." D sighed, remembering all of it. Every piece that was part of the room had a story. How it had come to his possession. Where it'd gone from there.

_'What do you mean by that?'_

"You know I was never the popular one. I didn't have any friends. What you see here...these were my friends. My world. All of it." He said with almost a vacant voice. Damarik went over to the bed and sat down. He ran a hand along the old Transformers comforter...remembering how itchy the underside was as a kid. The poster hanging over it...a picture of dinosaurs called Corythiosaurus...the various pictures hung up around the room, drawn by his own hands.

"I lived in this house from the time I was eight, until the time I was about thirteen. My room used to be downstairs on the second floor, but after..." D stopped mid sentence, a horrified look appearing on his face. He turned and ran down the attic stairs, noting the Mickey Mouse ears hat that sat on the in-wall shelf at the corner of the attic staircase...if that was there...

_'Well, are you going to finish your sentence or not?'_ L asked impatiently.

"I didn't get moved into that room until my old room had become the nursery..." Damarik choked at the bottom of the stairs. He stood in the thin hallway, the door across from the attic steps hanging open slightly.

_'Wait...you mean that this room here was hers? Are you sure you want to go in there?'_

Without really hesitating any longer, Damarik pushed open the door in front of him. It echoed through the dark house with a creak that seemed to carry to the corners of the foundation two floors below. It was nearly pitch black, but once again, the dim orange glow of the street light shone through the windows here. The bay style setting allowed the three portals a wide view of a very narrow strip of yard between his house and the neighbor's, but even as the light glared off the siding of the adjacent building, the room seemed swallowed in shadows.

"Jennifer..." D's voice echoed with hollow tones. Even as he stepped further into the room, he knew it would be empty. He'd seen this all before. The crib up against the left wall. The bassinet near the bay windows. A dresser pushed up against the right wall just out of reach of the door. And the playpen that sat empty in the middle of the room.

_'So...this really was your sister's room.'_ L stated matter of factly. His shadow once more seemed to detach from Damarik, stepping lightly through the enclosure, careful not to touch anything. 'It seemed fitting for a child.'

"Yeah." Damarik's head dropped. "Too bad it never saw the one it was meant for."

L's shadow came up to Damarik and placed it's long muzzle on his shoulder.

_'It's okay to feel loss for her. And there's no one here to tell you otherwise.'_ He consoled._ 'Besides, would anyone think less of you for crying if they'd had lost their sister at such a young age?'_

"It wasn't fair L." Damarik's voice caught. "She was barely into the world. My grandmother kept telling me that God would take care of her...but I never saw it that way." A single tear rolled down his cheek, glistening in the orange light. "I kept repeating it. _=If God cared about us so much...why would he take her away from me?=_ That was the last day I believed in God." He said, slamming his fist into the door.

_'And shortly after...you realized I was here...'_

"Since then...I've never looked back." Damarik sniffed a bit, drawing up what little tears he did have on his sleeve, noticing that his hand was bleeding. Looking back at the door, he saw where his fist had connected...and there was a hole there. Shards of wood had splintered off, and one or two had lodged themselves into the side of his hand. "Fucking hell..."

He picked them out, blood pooling where the wood had been embedded in his skin. As it dripped to the floor, he held the injury against his jacket, turning to walk out of the room.

"Come on. Let's get out of here." He spoke softly, hints of regret intermingled in his voice.

Just as L's shadow started to follow, the wail of a siren could be heard in the distance. It's rising tones brought back the recent memories of the world he'd just been in, and sure enough, as Damarik's pivot brought him to face the door, he found it blocked off by a rusted chainlink fence.

"Well...if THAT wasn't half expected..." He muttered, returning his attention to the room. Reaching behind him, he found that the guitar bag and golf club were gone...his hand met with empty air. "Fuck me..."

_'What do you think is causing this I wonder...'_ L's voice issued forth. But the longer the siren went on, the more solid he seemed to become. As the orange flourescence from outside turned a dim red, L's shadow had taken on a physical form. He stood at just under nine feet tall quadrupedal, having to duck his head to avoid hitting the ceiling. Fan-like webbing sprouted from just behind his glistening blue eyes, and a long, equine muzzle covered in leathery black hide had become real. Wings that could've spanned the whole room and more lay folded against his back, and a tail that curled around the playpen before it intercepted the wall had become flesh and bone.

The dragon stood amongst the things of the room, looking at an awestruck Damarik.

_'Is there something the matter?'_ he asked.

"L...you...your body..." Damarik stuttered, reaching out to touch the creature. "You've become...real...er, in a sense." His fingers grazed over the dragon's fire-charred scales, the injuries that caused his death in a previous life so apparent, so...textured, that even in his wildest visions Damarik had never even come close to really seeing how bad it had been.

L's body quivered at the old sensation.

_'I...am back...'_ Even he sounded astonished. _'Oh dear spirits above...even in my dreams I'd never thought this day would come again...'_

As human met dragon all over again, the two embraced in a very fitting form, their bodies almost melding together with the perfection. Like two halves of a whole. Damarik looked up into the eyes of the one whom he'd come to recognize and trust as a brother over the last few years like a family member he hadn't seen in ages, and the dragon looked down upon the human he'd come to love as his own sibling with a family type love shining in his.

As the two stood there for that moment, the siren faded, and the shadows around them fell back, as if they couldn't take the emotions of the moment. But in the darkness bound by the shadows, they held their ground, finally closing over the two soul-partners completely.

"Well...I think I've seen everything I needed to here." Damarik looked around at the new atmosphere of the room, disgusted with the scene that had taken over. All of his sister's furnishing had become bleak remnants of their prior bright and cheerful forms. The stuffed teddy bear sat headless in the crib, the bottom of the playpen had been smeared with blood.

_'Then what's say we get out of here? There's people back in the other world who may need us.'_ L's voice came through with a tone of confidence.

"Shall we?" Damarik asked, picking up the bassinet, hoping for a different reaction than he'd recieved at the sanitarium. As he threw it, the windows of the room shattered into a million pieces. L helped him hop up onto the dragon's back, a place between the wing joints accepting their human partner very comfortably. As the dragon took a running leap out the window, he veered sharply left and pulled up to avoid the neighbor's house and the powerlines, flying high up into the darkness of the nightmarish world.

Even as they did, a shadowy figure took a lumbering step out of the house. It stood on the front porch, a massive blade gleaming in the red light of the twisted street lamp. A large, tetrahedronal helmet sat atop it's shoulders, bare chest exposed to reveal massive amounts of muscle and scar tissue. A bloody smock made of what appeared to be cured human flesh was draped around it's waist, and hung to the ground with thick black boots jutting out of the covering ever so slightly.

The figure raised a hand up at the fleeing figures, as if reaching out for them.

Damarik's head began to throb, and L's flying faltered.

"What's going on?" Damarik asked, reaching for the throbbing veins in his forehead.

'I sense...something trying to hold us here...something powerful.' L's voice was strained.

Damarik was slowly losing his grip on the dragon, and the dragon in turn was losing control of his flight. The two began to plummet towards the ground at an alarming rate, human separating from dragon in the fall. As Damarik neared the ground, he caught a fleeting glimpse of the shadowed figure on his porch, that bloodsmeared blade catching his eye...

And then it all went completely black. Things seemed so topsy-turvey that Damarik could've get a grip on himself. Voices filtered in all around him as faces flashed by...his mother...his father...his second sister with her bright golden hair...

And the face of someone recently met...her own blue locks filling his vision...he could almost hear her.

"Hey...D...wake up...Can you hear me?!" She sounded panicked.

"What happened?"

"I don't know...he just hit the table and fell down...he's bleeding from somewhere. I Can't Tell!" Her voice intermingled with a few others...slightly familiar, yet not.

"Let's get him back into the booth!"

Damarik could feel himself being lifted, his body remembering the pain of the punishment it'd received earlier in that day's adventures.

"Is he gonna be okay? He looks...dead..." a rather childish voice put it bluntly.

"He'd Better Not Be! This Fucker Saves my Life...and then Dies from Hitting his Head on a Table?! Fuck that! Wake Up You Son Of a Bitch!"

A sharp crack across his face opened his eyes quickly. He could feel the breeze from another coming, and in complete reaction, his hand came up and grabbed the wrist of the incoming attacker.

"Thank God..." Stephanie breathed in relief. "What the hell happened to you? And why's your hand bleeding there?"

Damarik looked around. They were still in the Taco Shack, but it had taken on the look of the Nightmare World from his vision, and the earlier events.

"I saw things...that I needed to see." He spoke shortly.

"Well...you can rest assured on one thing." Savage spoke up.

Damarik turned to look at him. "What's that?"

Savage was looking around, a broken 2x4 held in hand, with a bloody tip.

"I believe you now." Savage pointed absent mindedly to a creature lying on the ground. It looked like it had once been one of those things they'd encountered in the Sanitarium...but blunt force trauma had rendered it a pile of oozing pus and broken bones.

"Great...so they've followed us."

Stephanie nodded. "You still haven't answered me though. What happened to you? We were just talking...you kind of spaced out, set your guitar bag down and came over here. Next thing I know, that siren goes off again and you're on the ground...now you wake up telling me you've Seen things you Needed to See? What the hell does that mean?"

There came the flapping of wings as everyone's attention turned to the doors of the establishment. A large shape was visible as a shadow outside of the tattered wooden relic, the glass having been smeared over with dirt and dust. As it stepped into the building, a sigh of relief escaped Damarik's lips, though no one else moved a single inch.

_'I believe I can shed some light on that.'_ L's soothing tones came to everyone in the room.


	7. Truth Behind the Fog

_"Watch me as I walk away into the darkest dreams. And see with your real eyes what it means to live in eternity. Come fly away with me to the farthest, forgotten lands. Take my hands and feel the wind beneath us, flying free. I'll take this second chance at life again. I'll ride the skies by storm and live out who I am. If there is one thing I can't bear to see, spread out before me. It's the chance I'll never fly again."  
_

_Lyrics to the song "Second Life" by: Astra Dracona, Copyright in 2006 to Clockwork Dragon and DRock Studios.  


* * *

_

"So...what you're saying is..." Savage began.

"Yes. This dragon is a part of Me. He is my inner self, a past life reincarnation, if you want to go that road. At least, that's what we've come to believe." Damarik finished.

_'If you want to think of it in easier terms...I act almost like the voice in his head, telling him right from wrong.'_ L added. _' Like a conscience.'_

Savage sat back in the booth as Sasquatch kept an eye on the door. Stephanie, however, was preoccupied with huddling herself in a corner as far away from the dragon as she could find, though never out of direct eyesight of him. She still couldn't get a grasp on the fact that the L who'd introduced himself to her in the sanitarium was standing right before her on all four feet.

"So...what's the bet saying she turns into a ball of fearful sobs any second?" Savage whispered under his breath.

"Hey...step off man. You may not show it, but you're probably just as weirded out by the stuff going down here as she is." Damarik spoke up.

Savage laughed lightly.

"This shit? My old roommate's apartment had weirder shit than this going on. And I was the cause of most of it...indirectly speaking..." He trailed off near the end, leaving the thought unfinished.

Damarik stood up and walked around L's form, running a hand across the leathery charred scales absentmindedly, illiciting a murr from the creature. As he stepped over to Sasquatch, whom kept his guard vigilantly even through his goofy demeanor, Damarik tapped him on the shoulder, signaling the end of his watch.

"Best get some sleep. God knows when we'll be back in the less gloomy and dangerous world." Damarik spoke up.

Sasquatch nodded, and Stephanie scooted closer to Damarik's spot by the door, though still staying as far away from L as she could manage. The two brothers took up one booth along the far wall and crashed, shortly followed by the sound of Savage's heavy snoring. As Stephanie sat near Damarik, she gazed out the window into the pitch black sky, looking at the tattered, broken down buildings and chain mesh fencing that predominated the hellish world they were in.

"How long do you think it'll be until it turns over again?" She asked.

Damarik shrugged.

"Well, I'd say you could make it easier by fingering up that mirror in the bathroom, but unless everyone is in there with you, it doesn't seem to work for the rest of us." He returned.

"How do you figure?"

"Those two. They were the key...because they were obviously here before we were. When we shifted back out into the normal...well, less shitty world, they were already here. And it worked for me every time I was in the same room as you. You touched the glass, I got pulled with you."

She nodded, seeming to take that answer. As she lay up against a shattered planter near the window, D could see her slowly drifting off to sleep. He didn't blame her. He was tired as hell too, and with no way to tell what time of day it was, there was no real sense of day and night. L seemed to be able to continually provide them with an up to date time, though even he admitted it was off by at least five to ten minutes. But it still didn't help; it just didn't feel right without the passing of the shadows cast by a sun that obviously didn't exist in this world.

As Damarik kept his watch over the streets, he tried to keep a few puzzles jumbling around in his head to help keep himself awake. Like firstly...what was with this Stephanie girl? She shows up in the Sanitarium...seemingly just as he did...maybe a little before or after. But then, she had the uncanny knack for warping his mental representations of his fears the way he did with hers. Add to that...she had that strange ability with the mirrors. Perhaps he too had some hidden trait that might get them through this ordeal a bit better off than what they were doing.

Then...the two brothers...though he couldn't say their story checked out...it was much the same as his. Minding their own business...and here they were.

To add to that...now L had physically appeared...this place was one screwed up world. That was the only thing he was certain of. Aside from that they all had to get out of there.

Settling down into his seat a bit more, D caught a glimpse of black shadow moving out of the corner of his eye.

"You know...you should probably get some sleep too. Even though you're a lot tougher than the rest of us, you're not invincible." He spoke softly, so as not to wake Steph.

'_Aye, and neither are you little one. I sense a great confusion in your head._' L replied.

"Yeah...I'm a bit worried. There's things that don't add up. A couple strange coincidences too many. Things like that."

L nodded. '_Yes, I've noted them too._'

Damarik leaned an elbow on his knee, placing his head in the hand and sighed.

"There's something I can't get off my mind either. Something...I don't know. It feels like I'm supposed to be doing. But I can't place my finger on it."

L looked at him quizically.

'_When did this come about?_'

"About the same time as when we first set foot in this town. It's just never really bothered me until now. In fact...do you even remember why we were on 81, driving like crazy?"

L shook his long, slender muzzle.

"Didn't think so. Neither do I."

'_I could surmise, that since I was with you at the time of the accident, perhaps we're both suffering from some sort of acute amnesia? We can both remember different things, but seem to have blank spots in certain areas...it's the only possible outcome I think would be plausible._'

"Who fucking knows..." He sat back, looking down at the girl beside him. "So, what do you think her story really is?"

'_Well, truth be told...I can't say for sure. She seems to not like me very much though._' L chuckled slightly.

Damarik had to stifle one of his own, because while the dragon's voice still sounded in his head, his echoed around the vacant building. He turned to gaze around the building, lingering on the two brothers, before returning back out to the dark, chain-link mesh that was the streets outside. As he let his vision blur for a moment in exhaustion, the tiniest of movements caught his eye, from underneath the fencing.

"Damn...I think we may have company." He said, getting up ever so slowly to get a better view. Whatever had been moving stopped in it's tracks, but Damarik could make out what appeared to be claws gripping the chain from underneath. The shadow of something moved in the dappled orange light of a nearly broken street lamp that flickered off and off down the block, and in it, he could see one glinting eye, vertically cut down the middle with a dark pupil. It didn't seem to notice them for the moment, and once it was satisfied that there was nothing to hinder it, the creature continued to crawl away under the fencing.

"What the hell do you think that was?" D asked, more so to himself.

'_I certainly hope it wasn't our friend from earlier. Given those claws, I'm tempted to think that myself, but this seemed like it was built low to the ground. Furthermore, our last friend didn't have any eyes either._'

Damarik nodded. He was just about to sit back down when the world around them began to revert to the less hostile, fog covered domain that they had arrived in.

"That's a bit of relief. It seems that we're back where we started."

'_Do you think we should wake the others?_'

"Depends. How long were you and I sitting there?"

'_You'd been there for at least three hours before I came over. Maybe another quarter of an hour or so afterwards._'

Sighing to himself, Damarik stood up. Gently nudging Steph awake, he moved on to Savage. After the brothers were up, everyone gathered in the center of the room.

"So...what's the deal? Where are you guys off to?" Damarik asked.

Savage shrugged. "We were just kind of wandering around aimlessly, trying to find a way home."

Stephanie stepped away from the group towards the doors.

"I've got something I need to figure out I guess. But I'm not going anywhere alone anymore. Not after what happened down in the quack-house..." She said.

D nodded.

"Well then, since you two aren't really doing anything that I'm not...maybe we can go together for a bit. As for you Steph...I hope your answers lie along the path I take, because if you don't want to go anywhere alone, then you're coming with us." Shouldering his guitar bag and golf club, Damarik walked over to her, putting a hand on her shoulder.

She looked up at him, still unsure of whether or not to trust him. It was plainly visible in her eyes. Then again, why should she? No real answers had been given to her questions yet, and with all the strange occurrences, he could've just been another person out to hurt her. It was all there, easy to read.

Uncertainty.

"Is that going to be okay with you?"

She turned away, pulling from his hand; and leaned a shoulder against the door to look outside.

"Do I really have a choice in the matter?"

D shrugged. "That's up to you. I don't really feel safe letting you go alone. Hell, I'd probably come looking for you after a bit anyway. But that's all your decision. I can't make you stay with us."

Steph turned to look at him almost as if she didn't believe what he was saying.

"So you're telling me that if I wanted to, I could just walk away from you and this crazy shit with that thing over there...", She said, pointing to L who was waiting patiently..."and you wouldn't knock me out and force me to come with you?"

He shook his head.

Taking a moment to think about it, she looked ready to tell him to get lost. But after a bit of deliberation, she agreed to go with.

"I just hope you know what you're doing. And if I die, so help me, I'll find a way to come back and kick your ass."

Savage laughed at that, and Sasquatch was trying not to.

"Girl, with the way things are around here, I don't think you'd have too hard of a time doing just that." Damarik smirked.

* * *

A long strip of land lay to their right as they all grouped together down Crichton Street. As a general rule of thumb, they stuck close enough together that if anything came at them, they could all fight together, but far enough apart so as not to become trapped by a horde of creatures. Damarik had been able to laugh at L for a little while when they came to pass up Alchemilla Hospital. All the doors to the building had been locked tight or jammed, the windows as impervious to destruction as those in the Sanitarium had been. So much for gathering medical supplies.

Nearing the closest intersection, they once again found themselves on Cielo Avenue. To Damarik's delight, a fenced in area concealed a dozen or more rows of exterior storage units, lined up along the entire block. Fingering the tag he'd procured from the corpse of the monster at the nut house as the group entered into the yard, they spread out to search for Number 24. The sound of footsteps echoed through the near empty place as four humans and one dragon padded around, checking each unit carefully.

As Damarik was about to give up, he came upon a row of units near the far side of the yard. Here, the doors to some of them look like they'd been bashed in, as if someone had made an attempt to drive a vehicle into them. Scrapes and tire marks left on the ground nearly confirmed the thought, but with this sort of damage done, there should've been by all rights a vehicle somewhere nearby. He stepped down the row carefully, spying the numbers on the units counting down from thirty.

"29...27...26...25...here we are..." He stopped in front of a unit that looked pristine compared to the rest. "Guys, Over Here! I Found It!"

Savage and Sasquatch rounded the corner of the units from the direction he'd come from, while Stephanie came up from the other side. L merely leaped up onto the top of the row behind him and settled to the ground, lightly fanning his wings. The door was locked, but it appeared that the lock itself was severely rusted. After taking a few swings at it with the golf club, Damarik sighed.

"Here...watch and learn." Savage responded as he took a step back, running at the door. A flying drop kick broke the locking mechanism that the padlock had been cuffed to, and with a little effort, the door rolled up on its springs in the track.

The unit was empty.

"What the hell?" D asked moreso to himself.

Stephanie came up to him, looking into the darkness inside the room. "I don't see anything."

"Me either." He replied.

Taking a step forward, Damarik began to feel a bit light headed, halting in his movement. 'Not this shit again...' he thought. Pushing the feeling away, he continued inside.

* * *

"What the hell is going on here? How did I get..."

Damarik stood in a small white room. Before him, a couch split the room in half, with a kitchen sharing the same four walls as the rest of the furniture. To his left, an arm chair was pushed into the corner, blocking off a defunct doorway. To his right, an entertainment center had been shoved up against another door that obviously had seen no use in years, being painted over. Games lined the shelves, a tv sat inside the unit...

Just to the left of the entertainment stand, a small bay style setting had been made out of the room, a computer desk set up against the bay windows. A massive leather arm chair sat just in front of it, with the computer chair for the desk between the two. A small doorway lead back into a bedroom that had been cluttered with clothes, a random suitcase, and a bed just barely large enough for two people. A few odds and ends were here and there, the most notable being a collection of swords and blades up against the wall that separated the two rooms.

In the dim light, he realized his surroundings.

"Where are we?" another voice called out from the first room.

Stepping back into the living room, Damarik saw Stephanie there, just inside an open doorway that lead to a hallway outside. As she stood there, Savage and Sasquatch appeared at the end of the hallway, coming in through the front door.

"I know where we are..." Savage spoke after he entered the room.

"So do I..." Damarik said.

As Savage looked at him oddly, he fingered the game cases on the shelves of the entertainment center, noting that in alphabetical order, four cases were missing from the 'S' section. In their place lay a small box. Picking it up, he opened it to find a picture inside, along with a few letters, some money, and other things that didn't seem all that important. The picture stood out from the rest though, as in it, he saw himself.

"This is..." He started, before Savage came over and looked at it as well.

"No fucking way."

In the image, four people sat all around in a circle on the kitchen floor of the apartment. One was himself, one was Savage.

"That's us...and there's my buddy Swytch." Savage spoke quietly.

"But then who's that...?" D puzzled.

The four person was blotted out with a marker, though enough was visible to make out that it was a female. She was leaning up against Damarik's shoulder, an arm up over his other while one of his wrapped around her waist. Everyone had a smile on their face, and seemed to be enjoying themselves, but something about the marked out face bugged D.

"Wait...so this means we know each other?" He asked as he turned to Savage.

The other pondered that for a moment, before he spoke up.

"If we were as close as we are in this picture, because god knows while I hang with a lot of people, Me, Swytch and --- were an especially close set...then there's only one way to tell."

Damarik blinked for a moment. "Wait, who was that last name?"

"---" Savage said.

"Okay...this is getting weirder by the moment. Whoever that is, when you say her name, I can't hear it."

Savage looked at him with a blank expression. "You can't hear me say her name? What do you mean by that?"

"Seriously...it's like your lips are moving, but nothing's coming out."

Noting that, he procured a post-it note from the fridge and grabbed a pen that had been left lying out on the dining table behind the couch. "Write it down."

Savage took them, and wrote it on the paper. As D looked at it, it was like he was trying to read a foreign language. He couldn't make out any of the letters, let alone even try to pronounce what Savage had written.

"I don't get it..." He sighed. "But then again, not much has made a whole lot of sense lately."

"Maybe you blocked it out?" Stephanie spoke up from the couch where she and Sasquatch had sat down. "Something bad might've happened. Stress makes you do stuff like that."

He turned the idea over in his head, trying to wrap his mind around what might have occurred. He did remember a bit of time before the accident that brought him here. But what it was he'd been running from...could that have been the thing that caused him to black out a part of his memory? It gave him a headache just thinking about it.

"God...this sucks. We're right there in the shot, practically glued to each other...and I can't remember her name...I can't even hear you say it, can't read it when you write it...what the fuck?"

Almost turning away from the photograph, Damarik stopped, returning to look at it one last time. He grabbed the photo and placed it in a zipper pouch in his guitar bag.

'_I will remember who you are..._' he thought to himself.

"So this doesn't answer the question...how the hell do we know each other?" Savage started again. "I can only think of one way to tell."

"Shoot."

"Let me see that guitar of yours." Savage reached around as D put the bag within his reach. He pulled out the old Cort guitar with a careful hand. "I've seen this one before."

Damarik stopped for a moment.

"But this guitar was given to me by a friend. He fixed it up for me. It was a..."

"Garbage Can Rescue..." Savage finished the sentence. "The neck was busted, the bridges were screwed..."

"And the tuning pegs were shot."

The two stared at each other for a while, each one knowing the intricacies of each other's stories about the instrument.

Just as he was about to ask Savage how he knew all of it...the memories came flooding back.

-_The first meeting at open mic night at the local coffeeshop...the first night back at the apartment where they were now...all the oil lamp nights when the power had been cut to the apartment...Swytch, Hannah who had been Savage's girlfriend...growing together like the tight knit family they were...each with their own inner demons and alternate voices or personalities...the infamous Goat of Savage..._-

"Holy shit I remember...all of it..." A hand went to D's forehead as he noted the startling realization also hit Savage's eyes.

"Oh my god...D...it was You..." Savage's words were near whispered. "This whole time it's been you..."

Damarik shook his head. "Yeah...it's me...and it's you too."

"No...I mean it's been you. I was thinking about you on the way back from the music store...you're what brought me and Sasquatch here."

He took a step forward, closing the ground between them.

"You'd been missing for a few weeks. No one had heard from you. --- was really starting to get worried...all of us were." He continued.

"A few weeks? But I haven't even been here that long. All I remember before being here is that I was trying to get away from something...someone."

They both stood in silence after that, trying to sort out their own thoughts as Steph and Sasquatch watched them from the couch. It took a few moments for either of them to collect themselves enough to speak again, but when Damarik tried, he found his voice was gone. The world started to spin around him rapidly, and the already dark corners of the apartment seemed to grow darker.

_'__L? You still with me here?_' He called out in his head.

The dragon didn't respond. They were never out of contact...

As the darkness became complete, he found himself feeling around in a blind panic. The furniture was still there...but the space Savage had been occupying the minute before was empty. It was like being blind, trying to find his way around the space...even if he knew it like the back of his hand. Hell, he'd lived there for six months. He should've known it well enough. There...the door to the bedroom.

"Hello? Guys? You still here?" his voice echoed back. Following the wall to his left, his hands fell across the stockpile of blades against the wall. The hefty one, a nodachi class blade, was the first to meet his grip. He fingered the wrap of the tsuka, grabbing hold of the somewhat familiar weapon. Just the weight of the cloth wrapped handle eased his nerves. He kept hold of it while he felt around for another weapon just to be safe, his hands finding the saya of his snakeskin katana. The oh so memorable wrap of reptilian skin across the scabbard brought back memories, and at once, he felt safer than he ever had since walking into this nightmare.

With the nodachi strung up with his guitar bag and the katana at his side, he sat down on the floor to await the moment he could see again.

* * *

_"I love you...and I would never hurt you intentionally."_

_"That's what you keep saying. I know you mean well, but it's not working."_

_"Well...what do I have to do?"_

_"Say goodbye. It's been almost three months now. We're still friends, but you've gotta let go."_

_"I can't..."_

_-You never could take a hint. Always trying to push harder and harder. Hoping foolishly that one day you'd win the day.-_

_"Shut Up! I'm Sick of Hearing You!"_

_-Be careful. People will think you're crazy, yelling at yourself like that.-_

_"You're not me...I'm nothing like you!"_

_-Keep telling yourself that. One day, you'll realize that we're not so different...-_

_

* * *

_

A damp heat permeated the air around him. The sound of live machinery came to his ears as he opened his eyes. The world around him was no longer dark, but still dim enough that it was hard to see. A faint red light seemed to glow from somewhere just beyond his vision, beckoning him to come forward.

He had arrived in a long hallway with doors to either side. They all seemed to be barely hanging onto their ancient hinges, rust and mold encompassing everything. The scent of burned flesh was keenly sharp above everything, and yet he could still smell something else. It was bitter sweet, yet pungent enough to just barely overpower the smoky, tasteless smells of the hallway.

Standing up and unsheathing the katana, Damarik walked forward, his boots clanking with dull reverberations against the cold steel floor. The first few doors had been sealed off completely, either covered up in boards and nails or cemented over. Door number three on the left was the first to budge, and with a little effort, he pried it open. Stepping inside, he was met with a wall covered in bloody text on the opposing side of the room, and a small candle lit altar just in front of it. Atop the altar were two dragon statues and a small knife, the candles casting the only light in the room aside from the red glow.

Looking up at the wall, he tried to make heads or tails of the writing.

'_**As it does rise, so too it must fall. Though eternities last and it endures, one day memory will fade and all will be left to naught. The path to find peace lies inside the red sun, the light of life. But the trail is always fraught with turmoil. Seek thee out the red sun, the light of life, and find your peace. If you can survive the reflection.**_'

As he looked hard at the altar, he saw a small silver depression in the floor beneath it, a divot cut out of the altar running towards the basin in the floor. Etched into the floor just above the dish read the words "Self Sacrifice for Self Gain".

"Jesus, this just gets stranger the longer I'm here." He knelt down, tracing the lines in the floor.

Just as his fingertips traced the last letter, he felt a lancing pain in his shoulder where the bite from the creature had been dealt, and a warm feeling running down his arm. As he watched, his coat became soaked with blood. It was all being drawn inexorably towards the basin in the floor, the letters of the etching lighting up a warm gold as the first few drops hit. He tried to force himself away, finding it felt like he was glued to the spot. With a tremendous amount of force, he threw himself away towards the door, and the pain stopped. The blood flow lessened until it too gradually halted into nothing. He could feel the wound in his shoulder still pulsing, but it had stopped its gushing.

"What the fuck..." He asked through gritted teeth, standing up. He loosened the strap of the guitar bag from his shoulder, leaving it propped up against the wall with the Nodachi blade, knowing that he couldn't carry either of them at that moment. If the other strap had been intact...he might've managed it, but it didn't receive the mending that the guitar had. It was a shame to leave the large blade behind, but without the use of his right arm...it would've been useless. As it was, he'd have been lucky to be able to swing the katana with his left arm, having a lack of coordination with that hand.

Standing up, he made to leave the room as fast as he could. A few other rooms gave him less of a reason to want to continue. Most of them were empty save for a few running machines and maybe a pool of blood here or there. Upon reaching the next to last door, he walked in, holding the katana at his side with the blade partially drawn. He looked around in the dark, finding candles lit at the far end of the room. In the center of the candles, which had been arranged to form an encircled pentagram, there was a person kneeling naked amongst the flames.

Short cropped black hair obscured her face, a thin frame had assumed the submissive posture with a down turned head. Cuts and bruises laced her skin, and he could hear her breaths coming in ragged gasps. Quickly running towards her, Damarik knocked a few of the candles out of the way, dropping the katana so he could rouse her with his good arm.

"Hello? Hello...are you okay? Talk to me, please?" He tried in desperation. She was dribbling blood from multiple tiny lacerations across her arms, but seemed to not notice as she sat there, hands on her knees with her face down. Putting his palm to her forehead, he pushed her head up gently to get a good look at her face.

Her voice came across in his mind, though her lips moved not an inch.

'_Damarik...Damarik why? Why couldn't you let go?_'

He stood up and stepped back in shock.

_-Now there's something I could write a story about. Eyes like reflecting pools...deep enough you could get lost in them. A smile that'd out shine the sun. Great personality. Beautiful. Very cheerful most of the time...though heaven help ya if she got pissed.-_

Little life remained in those deep, reddish brown eyes. The smile that lay across her face was twisted and deformed from the injuries she'd sustained. Though still beautiful, it had become in some sick twisted way, as the dark purple and blue marks that scarred her once nearly flawless skin rippled across her body.

Collapsing backwards to the floor, he caught himself up on his good arm to steady himself as she began to crawl forward on her hands and knees, blood pulsating from each and every cut.

"No...this can't be happening..." His voice wavered, eyes wide in both horror and sorrow. "This isn't real...you can't be here..."

"But here I am..." she spoke. "Look what you've done to me..." Her smile faded as she crept closer.

"I couldn't have done this...it's not true...you KNOW I could've have...never would've..." He felt his back come in contact with the door as it lay open in the doorway.

"D...please...tell me you still love me...Why are you running away?"

"This isn't real...it's a dream...a nightmare..." He made it to his feet and scrambled out the door, shutting it behind him. As the latch clicked, he could hear her cry in agony, her fists beating against the rotted wood. It wouldn't hold for long...He quickly tried the last door before finding it locked. As he ran back down the hallway, all the previously open doors were locked as well. He saw one door standing open and ducked inside, slamming the portal closed behind him. Just as he put his foot against the door, he felt a strong hand grip him by the back of the neck, lifting him high into the air. A choked sound rippled from his throat as a deafening squeal pealed out through the room, as though metal was scraping metal.

There was a loud ker-thunk as a blade as long as he was tall embedded itself into the wall next to the door. Damarik saw a massive arm reach past him to open the door, the skin on it thickly corded with muscle, veins pulsing wildly as though whoever owned it was acting with great restraint. As the door opened, he could see the woman crawling through the doorway into the room. With a sickening crunch, the large sword was withdrawn from the wall, and he felt himself carried over to the altar, followed by the woman, and the squealing of the blade along the floor. Once again, the sword became embedded in the wall.

Just then, a sharp pain erupted in his back. Fire beyond belief rolled up his spine as everything below the point of impact went limp. Looking down, he could see a fist protruding from his chest, clutching something small and red, spurting blood with every twitch it made.

'_My god...it just tore out my heart..._' His mind put together. Things were starting to fade to black as he was thrown to the floor. His heart was placed on the altar into the gouged out groove. He could see a large shadowed figure give the woman the blade that had rested upon the altar. Without so much as a second thought, she drove the knife into his heart, and blood began to seep through the crack, down into basin depressed into the floor. The letters etched above the basin fired alive into a bright white light, and the sound of the machinery stopped. Just as he was about to pass out and die, the woman crawled back over to him.

"Why did you run away D?" She asked, before pressing her lips to his. She seemed to be sucking what little air he had out of his battered lungs, but it was still a kiss. Passion remained, and for a moment, he thought he'd receive a merciful death by asphyxiation...when her name came to him. His lips came to speak it, but he was cut short as the towering figure crept into his fading vision. In the final moments, he saw her smile up at the monstrosity as it raised the blade high above its head. It brought the tip down clean through his chest. There was pressure...and then blackness.

Release.

* * *

"Damarik...wake up..." a voice called to him from the darkness.

'Go away...leave me die.'

"Dude...snap out of it D..."

A sharp pain in his face brought him to awareness.

"I think he's coming around again..."

His eyes fluttered open, and his vision swam. Slowly, pictures began to come into focus, faces and then surroundings.

They were back outside in the storage lot's parkway. Savage, Sasquatch, Steph and L all crowded around him, worried looks upon their faces.

"Oh thank god. I thought we'd lost you there for a moment." Steph sighed.

"Hey..." He started and motioned to Savage and Steph.

Savage leaned down close as Steph came in.

"Her name is Paige..." He said before exhaustion took him. The world was once again dark.

And he slept.


	8. Pursuit of Madness

_"I know I should've told you. I was so afraid you'd leave. And now there's nothing left to say. Well, nothing that you'd believe. I never meant to hurt you with the things I couldn't say. I promised you tomorrow while denying you today. These lies have torn my world apart. A darkness grows inside me in fading shades of grey. All the colors of the world are slowly sucked away. I'm sinking ever deeper to a place that's cold and black. I can't believe I've lost you, and you're never coming back._

_These lies have torn my world apart."  
_

_Lyrics to the song "Torn Apart" by: Stabbing Westward and accompanying artist Wink, Copyright in 1998 to Stabbing Westward, Wink, and Columbia Records.

* * *

_

It seemed like forever until he opened his eyes again. All throughout a smattering of dreams in that black period, visions swam in and out of his mind's eye. Images of the sanitarium played through his mind, though it seemed parts were missing.

He could see when the monster came bursting through the door into the female ward. And then, there he was leaning down to check on the girl. But she wasn't there. He also saw himself sitting alone on the couch in the main hallway, talking to no one in particular. It was quite disturbing, even to his subconscious.

When he finally did wake, it was to the sounds of a nearby river. Cold, wet grass clung to his clothes, and an odd weight pressed against his back. He pushed himself up off the ground into a sitting position to find that the guitar bag, the nodachi blade, and the snakeskin katana were all with him.

Looking around, he saw the others all on their own patches of hell. Savage and Sasquatch remained sitting though, their backs pressed together to hold each other up while they slept. Stephanie was curled up in the grass near his back. L was the only one still awake, his keen gaze keeping watch over the group. Gold tinted blues flicked this way and that, always watching for the stray monster or other sign of life.

_'Good to see you're awake. It's been nearly two days.'_ L's mental presence came to his senses.

"Glad to be back." Damarik returned. "Two days? Where are we at?"

_'The opposite bank of the river that separates this side of the town from the part we were in previously. We're just due south of an old drawbridge that links the two halves of the town together.'_ L turned and stepped lightly towards him.

Damarik made a quick motion, halting the dragon before pointing to Stephanie.

_'Ah. A wise choice, lest I forget how she reacts to me.'_

"So, what's our situation? Do we have any supplies, any new clues to go on?" Damarik asked.

L shook his head.

_'No. We came here to escape a new fiend. The creature we saw hanging from the grating of the road in the demonic realm. They swarmed the streets shortly after you came back from inside the altered space inside the storage unit. They've been dogging us in the other realm, but seem to not exist in this one.'_

Sighing, Damarik got to his feet.

"Well, at least I can better combat these things." He said, hefting the katana at his hip. It's smooth scabbard felt good to hold once more, knowing he'd owned and worked with it previously. Drawing the blade slowly, he could see multiple dings in the blade from where he and a friend had gone toe to toe in live steel combat. Placing it away again, he regarded the sleeping girl on the ground behind him.

_'Twopence for your thoughts little one?'_ L's cool gaze turned to the streets for signs of activity as he awaited a reply.

"I don't know. I've got one too many at the moment." Damarik's head was swimming in mental images. Simply picking one wasn't as easy as the other made it out to be.

_'Then perhaps, your thoughts on her?'_

The more Damarik watched her slow and shallow breathing, the more he became keenly aware that there was more connecting them than he understood right away. Too many coincidences didn't line up, and one too many pieces of the puzzle were missing to make any solid conclusions. Yet there was still something there.

"After seeing Paige in the alternate world inside that unit...there's just something that's drawing me closer to Steph. I now know what I had with Paige, but what I need to know is why I'm running from her. I'm beginning to get the feeling that this girl here has some of those answers, and not just the small ones."

Damarik felt a cool wave wash over his mind as the dragon prodded it for memories of his time in the twisted world he'd been in. When it retreated, he looked at the dragon.

_'Oh dear. No wonder you've been unresponsive for so long. That was quite the experience.'_

"Yeah. I get the feeling it's not gonna get any easier. I just wish I had some clear concrete information to go on."

_'But...you're afraid to press her for answers.'_ L continued.

"Yeah. You know me, always afraid to push the boundaries. So what if I like to have a comfort zone?"

_'It's not going to get you anywhere in life if you keep worrying about invisible lines drawn in the sand. No one is any less vulnerable than you are. Just because you're afraid to push doesn't mean that someone else won't.'_

Damarik thought that over for a moment before moving next to Stephanie. It was odd, sitting this close to her. He felt a bit protective of the girl. Not feeling it was right to pass it off as his never ending knight-in-shining-armor routine, there was a nagging sensation in the back of his mind.

He'd already risked his life once to save her. Since then, he'd been trying to protect her. It hadn't always been evident to him, but his sudden near-death experience back at the Storage Units brought about the realization that he'd been putting himself in jeopardy to keep her from harm. Whether it was by the jaws of their mutual friend in the sanitarium, or from the creatures that stalked underneath the fenced streets...even against Savage suggesting to make her force the world to shift back to normal. He'd been placing himself in harm's way to make sure she didn't have to do anything she didn't want to, and that she was safe with him.

_'You look deep in thought again, and your mind is shielded from me.'_ L's voice echoed in his head.

"Sorry. I spaced out there."

_'What is it that concerns you young one? You are not normally this troubled by simple things.'_

Damarik found himself reaching into his coat pocket for the pack of smokes he kept there. Surprisingly after all he'd gone through, they weren't crushed or broken. Lifting one out of the pack, he'd been about to light it when L left a tiny jet of flame from his nostrils, singeing the tip of the cigarette. Damarik inhaled deeply off of the nicotine filled paper tube, letting smoke drift out from between his lips lazily in thought.

"Stephanie. That's what's bothering me. Things aren't lining up, no matter how hard I wrack my brain. And yet, I find myself drawn to protect her."

_'Like you do with most women you see who are in a bad situation. It's an admirable trait.'_ L replied.

"Is it bad that I think I may be falling for her L? Even with how little we know about her? I don't normally feel this strongly towards someone unless there's some kind of bond there."

_'You did put in life and limb to rescue her. I would be wary, but I see no trouble coming out of it. Just remember to keep your head in the world that surrounds us for the time being. There doesn't appear to be any safe respite in sight, and every new portal could be just that, as it seems.'_ The dragon sauntered off with that, leaving Damarik to his own thoughts again.

"Yeah. This place is one hell of a mind fuck, that's for sure." Damarik agreed to L's open ended statement. "Too many things out of place."

He sat there, burning away at the cigarette as his mind churned with thought patterns and trails, hoping to come to some resolution for the better part of an hour. His mind settled on the facts at hand, leaving the rest of the clues for another day. Finishing the smoke, he tossed the butt into the grass towards the river's edge, only to be startled out of his mental daze by a noise from behind him.

Steph had been twisting and turning in her sleep, sounds of discomfort escaping past her lips. As he put a calming hand to her shoulder, one of her own hands snaked up to cup his tightly. He turned to sit facing her as she slowly calmed down. Without realizing it, a smile was creeping its way across his face. The longer he sat there, the more sure he was that he was in fact becoming very affectionate towards the girl. That thought only more firmly seated itself in his mind as he lie down next to her, feeling her arms wrap around him. He drifted off to sleep with her hair falling gently across his face, experiencing true happiness for the first time since he'd set foot in that god forsaken town.

* * *

The sound of a nearby siren wailing high into the night air awoke them all from slumber. As Damarik sat up, his hands instinctively flew to the hilt of the katana at his hip, thumbing the blade out of the sheath just enough to draw it quickly if necessary. Everyone else was up on their feet already, eyes keen and alert for any signs of movement.

Standing up, Damarik noted the ground beneath them literally melting away, replaced by the iron and chain ground that he'd become so accustomed to in the nightmarish alternate reality of the town. When no immediate danger presented itself, he returned the blade fully to the sheath and left go of it. A quick scan over the surrounding environment gave little comfort that this trip into the nightmare was going to be any easier or less frightening, but something else caught D's attention.

L was nowhere in sight.

Glassing the entire area for the dragon, Damarik's face sagged with every passing second that his counterpart wasn't spotted.

"Dude...it's like he just vanished." Sasquatch's voice echoed across the cold steel around them.

"Maybe he's down by the river getting a drink or something." Savage replied.

"Would you drink anything here?" Damarik retorted. When no answer came, he finished. "Didn't think so. Let's go."

He struck out with the others following him, trying to follow that little inner tingle that told him whenever the dragon was at his closest to his mind. It was one giant game of hot and cold in a sense. When he finally caught the first faint spark, Damarik's pace quickened steadily.

'L...tell me you're okay.' His thoughts resounded in his head.

They were met with dead silence.

D led them on down what was labeled as Bradbury Street for what seemed like forever in the dismal abyss of the darkness. They'd crossed Bachman Road and Levin Street before coming to a gaping hole in the ground at Midwich Street. Opposite the hole, what appeared to be a school could be seen, though there was no way to access it from where they were. With nothing left to go on but that familiar tingle, Damarik led them back to Levin Street, turning left towards the center of town.

"So how do you know where you're going man? I haven't seen you use a map once." Savage asked.

Without breaking stride, Damarik checked the nearest alleyway to find it boarded up, a corpse hanging from the wood posts.

"You know that feeling you get when your foot falls asleep? It's kind of like that." He turned, looking up at a worn out fire escape in the alley. "The stronger it gets, the closer he is. I can feel it in my head. That's about the best description you're going to get, cuz it's all I can think of."

Thinking better of it, D ignored the rusted out stairway above him and returned to the street. He'd just made it out of the alleyway when behind him, the fire escape came crashing down to meet him, stairs leading up towards the roof of the building.

Savage looked at it, then to Damarik.

"You're kidding, right? You're not honestly thinking of using that piece of shit, are you?" He asked as D turned around to look at it again.

"All I know is this. My head was pretty much buzzing like a nest of hornets at Midwich Street...which means he wasn't too far away. That right there seems to be the fastest way to get there. If you don't want to go, I ain't gonna try and make you. But I'm going. My other half is out there somewhere, and I won't leave him."

Savage took one look at his brother before turning back to D.

"You know, I'm still not sure I understand how that works. And I still can't say I believe you entirely. Now, I've got my brother to think of here, D. And I know that we're friends and all, but I can't risk his safety chasing after something that exists in your head." Savage backed up, his hands out to the sides. He stepped next to Sasquatch and stood there firmly.

Damarik nodded.

"It's all good. I understand man. Tell you what. We'll meet back here in about two hours. While I'm gone, see if you can find any clues as to where we're supposed to go to find something that'll get us the hell out of this madhouse, all right?"

"Sounds like a plan to me. That we can do." Sasquatch cut in.

"All right. It's settled then." Savage waved. The two of them ran off down the street without another word.

Stephanie started to follow them, but halted in her tracks. She turned to look over at Damarik.

"Are you really going to go look for it?" She asked.

"I have to. He'd do the same for me if the situations were reversed." He sighed.

"Then I'm coming with you."

Taken aback at that, Damarik walked over to her, a questioning look on his face.

"You sure? Last I knew, you didn't like him all that well."

Steph twiddled her thumbs for a second.

"Well...while you were out cold, we got attacked by some new monsters. He kinda protected me, so I guess I owe him one. That, and I'm a little curious about him now."

Taking that for an answer, Damarik turned back towards the fire escape. He removed the katana from his belt, unslinging the nodachi from beneath the guitar bag. He passed the sword to her before tying the nodachi where the katana had been, thumbing the blade from the sheath.

"You know how to use one of those?" He asked her.

"Yeah. Took a bit of Aikido. This isn't much longer than the tanto blades they taught us to use."

"Good. I'm still gonna do the brunt of the fighting, but I can't cover all sides at once. So use it if you have to. Just make sure you know what you're swinging at."

With that, the two were climbing the fire escape towards the top of the building. Each step they took made the structure shake as though it were to give out at any moment. Step by step, they made their way up the staircase until they came to a block.

"Looks like this is as far as we go. The stairs have rotted out here." Damarik called back. Steph stood at the bottom of the last stair set looking up.

"Well, there's an open window here. Maybe we can find another one on the other side of the building."

"Good idea. I'm coming back down."

D made his way to the lower landing where she was standing, and the two crawled into the building. They came out into a dark room, the ambient red light of the otherworld barely penetrating inside the structure. Pulling his Zippo from his pocket, Damarik illuminated the darkness, the fire blazing light into the corners of the room.

If the outside was dismal, inside it was worse. The building looked like it had been gutted by fire. Scorch marks lined what was left of the walls, support structures visible through holes and cracks in what looked to have once been fine craftsmanship. Chasms in the floor went straight to the basement of the building. In some places, it looked like they dropped into the abyss that was visible outside of the Sanitarium, where the buildings were held aloft on steel I-beams and nothing more, hanging over a pit of darkness. From somewhere in the structure, a grating metallic sound could be heard off and on, and the building itself seemed to smell of sulfur and blood.

"I don't think that this is such a good idea anymore." Damarik spoke. He turned to face Stephanie.

Her eyes had gone wide with fear, hands both gripping the katana in an embrace of terror. Damarik grabbed the hilt of the nodachi and slowly turned around, scanning the room as he did.

There, in the doorway to the room, stood the massive figure he'd seen in the sanctuary with the altar. A large helmet adorned the figure's head, hiding its face from view behind a steel pyramid. The being's torso was left bare, its chest and arms thickly corded with pulsing and twitching muscle. From the waist down, it was clad in a smock that looked as though it'd been sewn together from the tanned skins of human beings. But its most noticeable trait was easily the large blade it held in it's right hand. The weapon was rusted, but it still seemed solid enough to shear its way through anything that it's master saw fit to try and cut. The edge of the blade extended more than five feet from the handle, coming to rest with the tip buried in the floor.

Drawing the nodachi blade, Damarik motioned for Stephanie to climb back out the window. He turned to see if she caught the message, noting that she was no longer behind him.

'I hope she got the hint...' D thought as the harsh scrape of metal brought his attention back to the monstrosity before him. The figure drew the blade across the ground, its weight obviously being enough that he couldn't carry it properly. It drug behind him, cutting into the floor deeply. Step by step, the hulking mass of muscle came forward in an awkward dance of movement. A foot here, an outstretched arm there to balance him against the blade. Another foot here, and then the blade drug across the floor again.

Not waiting another second, Damarik ran at the other and swung his sword hard from the left.

To his amazement, not only did the Pyramid headed monstrosity have time to follow his movements, but the large cleaving weapon had been brought up to block the blow. The monster held it in front of him, tip in the floor, like a shield. With one quick maneuver, it twisted the weapon and threw Damarik across the room, gripping the handle in both hands.

Damarik skidded to a stop on his feet, nodachi between him and the other.

With what appeared to be very little effort, given how much it had taken him to just drag the blade, the monster swung it at him full force. Damarik barely managed to deflect the blow. It sent him flying against the wall, the nodachi clattering to the floor at his side. Surprisingly, the long katana blade hadn't been shattered, though it had a large gouge in it from where metal had contacted metal. As Damarik made to grab for it, the sound of something huge moving through the air caught his attention, and he rolled out of the way as the massive blade wielded by the Pyramid man came straight down where he'd been, cutting into the wall, and going through the floor into the duct work underneath.

Damarik came out of the roll with nodachi in hand, got up and jumped at the monster, katana coming down from over his head. It contacted with the monster's helmet with a reverberating clang. The monster dropped its weapon and reached for its helmet, a low guttural moan echoing from within. Its left hand fumbled over a small hole in the front of the contraption, while it's right flew out to steady itself, the weight of the helmet throwing the creature off balance. Damarik seized the opportunity and swung again, the blade of his weapon cutting into the monster's back. It staggered forward, once again off balance from the weight of its headgear, but otherwise seemed unfazed by the attack. It reached down to pick up its weapon but didn't make any further attempt to attack D. Instead, it stood there, one gloved hand pointing to one wall, where glowing red words were appearing in the framework.

_**-You will always first and foremost be your own worst enemy.-** _The words read._  
_

As the monster made to exit the room, Damarik stood there staring at it, still unsure of the creature's purpose. It was leaving him alone after assaulting him for no reason...

"Hey, are you okay?" Stephanie's voice called in from outside the window.

"Yeah, I think so." He returned, surveying the damage the monster's blade had done to his own.

Stephanie crawled back inside, the katana in her hands outstretched towards anything that moved outside of Damarik's figure, her eyes flashing left and right in terror.

"What the HELL was That?" She demanded.

"That," D sheathed his blade, "was a monster that I thought I had killed me inside that space in the Storage Unit. When everything went dark and I was alone."

She gave him an odd look.

"Is that why you were unconscious for so long?"

He shrugged.

"It'd be my best guess. Son of a bitch ripped out my heart and Paige put a knife through it." The words left a sour taste in his mouth.

"Paige huh...so that's the girl then? The one from the picture, I mean."

Damarik nodded, turning to look at the writing on the wall.

"Yeah. I guess we used to be really close. It's been hard to remember things since I got here, but going on that picture, we must've been friends at the very least. Her voice too is so familiar, that if I was to guess, I'd say we'd been dating." His hands began to tremble as he kept speaking.

"It's okay D. Just calm down." Steph reassured him from behind, putting her hands on his shoulders.

"I...I can remember bits and pieces of things. Conversations." He brought a hand to his head, as if in pain. "I'm always hearing them. But then there's this other voice. It's always really condescending...like some asshole you just want to get rid of, but he's always there. Telling me things. Things that can't be true, that I'd never do."

She turned him around and hugged him close.

"Hey, just relax, okay?"

"I can't. Every time it feels like I'm getting close to an answer, something else comes in and screws up my thoughts. It's not making any sense. I remember things, and then I don't. Visions flash in and out, and half the time, I wonder if I'm really who I say I am. Who I feel like I am." He pulled himself away from her embrace, pacing the room back and forth. "And then when things really hit the fan, I lose the one thing that's been so constant in my life that He's more than just a part of me."

With a frustrated roar, he drew the nodachi from it's sheath and swung it at the letters engraved upon the wall, slicing into the sheetrock behind them. The blade halted and became stuck on something, not budging another inch.

"Damn it! What the Hell is all this bullshit supposed to mean?" He yelled. "Why me? What the fuck did I ever do to deserve this Hell?!"

Stephanie took a daring step forward, her hand once again going to his shoulder. It shook violently under her touch, his breath heaving in and out while he stood rooted to the spot. Sweat was dripping down the side of his face, and another raging yell was threatening to rip loose from his lungs. She could feel it building, the pent up emotions making him shake worse than before.

"DAMARIK!" She yelled. "Calm Down!"

With an exasperated sigh, he left go of the blade's hilt, fists balling up at his sides.

"You expect me to be able to calm down in a situation like this? I've got some psychopathic tank of an asshole hunting me down left and right with a giant butterknife of death just waiting to be embedded in my Skull...my dragon is missing and probably in trouble...The brothers are off alone looking for a way out...and I have to defend You while dodging every calamity coming my way!"

She took a step back.

"Don't worry about me. I was here for a while before you showed up. Just worry about doing what you need to do, okay?"

D spun around, quick as lightning with a fire burning in his eyes.

"I don't KNOW what I need to do! God Damn It, do you think I've actually got some plan of action that's going to get us out of here alive!? I'm just trying to make sure that no one gets hurt while I'm stumbling around in the dark, just HOPING that I find something relevant to the situation! I don't even know if we CAN get out of here!"

Seemingly with little effort, he spun around again, gripping the hilt of the nodachi, and in one fluid movement, ripped it from the wall, returning to face her with the sword back-held in his hand to keep it's sharp tip towards the wall and away from her.

"I'm just going to say this. You decided to stick with me. I gave you the option out, and you chose otherwise. It's still your choice. I don't know where we're going aside from the school right now, so if you want to keep following, that's fine. But until I find out what happened to L, there isn't anything that's going to get in my way. Even if it means passing up a way out of here. So do what you will." He sheathed the massive weapon, leaving her alone in the room.

When she caught up to Damarik, he'd found another ladder to the rooftop and was already making his way up. By the time she'd reached the roof, Damarik stood at the precipice between two rooftops. He held fast to both the sword and his hat as he took a running start towards the gap, hit the ledge and leapt clean over the pit. Turning around, he looked at her, an ice cold stare in those soft blues.

"You coming?"

"Jeez D. If this is how you act, it's no wonder she left you." Steph huffed under her breath before following him.


	9. Not Quite a Nightmare But Never a Dream

_"He who makes a beast out of himself...gets rid of the pain of being a man..._

_Caught here in a fiery blaze. Won't lose my will to stay._

_I tried to drive all through the night. The heatstroke ridden weather, the barren empty sights. No oasis _

_here to see. The sand is singing deathless words to me."_

_Lyrics to the song "Bat Country" by: Avenged Sevenfold, Copyright in 2005 to Avenged Sevenfold and Warner Brothers Records._

_

* * *

_

The final leg of the journey to the school passed uneventfully. Damarik noted with dismay that Stephanie had kept herself distanced from him. It was no wonder, with the way he burst out on her, he would've kept away too. Much to his thanks, she'd decided to stay with him for now. The journey ahead wasn't looking much easier to begin with. As they'd approached the school, he realized that the entire front walkway was in shambles. Completely destroyed. All that remained was a large, gaping hole in the ground. With a bit of ingenuity, they managed to climb the wrought iron and concrete fence that afforded solid ground on the other side into the school yard. The closer they got to the inside of the building, the more prominent the buzz in Damarik's head became. It seemed for certain that L was there.

"Okay...are you with me on this? No giving out halfway through?" D turned to Steph as they stood on what was left of the front stairway.

She nodded.

With blades drawn, they stepped into the building. The open lobby was empty, the portal to the main hallway standing clear, the doors pushed to either side as if to welcome them. There came no sounds from within the building and Damarik wasn't sure if he found that to be a good or bad thing. To the right, on a poster board, a map of the building had been hung.

"Well, that was nice of them." Steph joked as she pulled the map down. Damarik took out his Zippo to give them a bit of extra light, flicking it open and igniting the flame.

The map had been covered in marks, doors crossed off and remarked, as if someone had already used it to make their way through the building. Each one had been labeled, telling where it went, when it had been opened, and how. There was a strange added section to the one basement room, marked with a skull and crossbones, the word "Monster" written next to it.

"Bit of a cartographer, weren't they?"

D shook his head.

"Whoever was here before us most likely had different motives. I seriously doubt they're still around to ask them about it. Let's get moving." He nodded towards the hallway, turning right. The first room that was marked as unlocked read 'Infirmary'. As they entered into the room, it seemed to severely contrast the exterior hallways, being clean and white. Unlike the nightmare that had pervaded the outside world and the hall of the school, this room seemed to be as sterile as a normal hospital ward.

Damarik quickly took to raiding the room. Shelves, a desk, tables...all of it was checked and double checked. It'd been too long since they'd had medical supplies and to his great fortune, he found an emergency kit and a package of the red bottled drinks. He undid the wrapper on the six pack, taking three and giving three to Steph. She placed them in her pockets while he uncapped one for himself. As soon as the sweet liquid hit the back of his throat, he could feel the exhaustion and aches from the previous fight fade away, minor scrapes and cuts mending themselves.

"Much better." He coughed, the cherry-mint flavor of the fluid still tingling his throat.

They continued to pick through the room, coming upon two syringe like vials with tiny needles sticking out one end, capped for safety. The label read "Ampoule", for use in dire situations. As much as he hated the thought of needles, he placed them in the upper compartment of his guitar bag. Stephanie watched him as he zipped it back up.

"You know, for how much you've fallen, laid on it, or rolled around, that bag still looks like it's in decent shape." She noted.

"Yeah. I've kinda just gotten used to it. Everything inside is still in one piece, the guitar seems to fix itself every time I do something that should break it completely...so I stopped asking questions. I'm just going with it now." D shrugged, unzipping the bag to show the guitar inside, still in pristine condition. "Me and this thing have seen a lot of good times since Savage gave it to me. For a garbage can rescue, it plays pretty good too."

"I've never heard you play it before." She said, a hint at wanting him to in her voice.

Damarik looked around at the inside of the room again, noted that the door was fairly thick.

"Well, I guess we have a bit of time for a rest. Why not? We'll settle down here for a few minutes." He replied. Even though the health drink had just kicked in, he could still feel the last few hours events draining him bit by bit. It'd seemed like at least a day had gone by since he woke up on the bank of the river. Without L to tell him of the time, he of course had no clue, but since he knew the dragon was in the general area and didn't feel any distress coming from the static in his head, he at least hoped the creature wasn't in any harm.

Stephanie sat down in the chair sitting up against the desk in the room as Damarik hopped onto the examination table, bringing the instrument out of it's bag. He tuned it by ear until the sounds of each string met his satisfaction before drifting off into a lilting Scottish lullaby.

* * *

_"But my heart is full of woe. For last night she bade me go. And the tears begin to flow. As I sing: Horee Horo."_

_"That was pretty. Where'd you learn that one?"_

_"I got it from a tape I picked up at Celtic Fest one year in Bethlehem. Guy named Charlie Zahm sung it there, but it's an old Highland song. I liked it, so I figured I'd learn it."_

_"You always were the hopeless romantic, weren't ya D?"_

_-Yes...and it keeps getting you into trouble, doesn't it?-_

_"I like to think rather that I'm not so much hopeless, just more romantic than most."_

_"Or corny."_

_"Look at it this way. You're the one who said yes to dating me."_

_"I know."_

_"You say that like you regret it."_

_-Of course. After a while, she did.-_

_'I'm ignoring you, if you haven't noticed...'_

_"No, I don't regret it. Sometimes though, I've gotta wonder what I was thinking."_

_"Why do you say that all of the sudden?"_

_"Because. Sometimes, you're just nuts."_

_"True..."

* * *

_

"So Mr. Musician, you in a band or something back home?" Steph asked as he finished.

Damarik shook his head.

"Mostly a solo act. If I remember right, me and Savage tried getting something together once with Sasquatch as the drummer. Kept turning out more like work than fun, so we broke it off. Music isn't supposed to be work, it's supposed to be fun. If you can't enjoy it, then why bother?" He replied, thumbing the strings idly.

"Solo act?"

"Yeah. I called it Astra Dracona...Latin for Star Dragon."

"Go figure." She chuckled.

"What? Latin is a universal language."

"No, the dragon bit."

"Ah." Damarik shrugged. "It seemed rather appropriate. The music I create is meant to send a message. The story of his life. If it weren't for L, well...I'd probably be just another kid playing video games at home all day. He encouraged me to take up music again, after I'd all but given up on it as a kid. I figure I owe him that much." The guitar continued it's melodic tune as he plucked a few more strings, the sounds bouncing off the corners of the room and returning in a chorus all their own.

"So do you know any neat tricks? Can you play it behind your back or some crazy stuff like that?" Steph asked.

"Well no, but me and Savage did figure something out. Watch this."

With that, Damarik set the guitar down, moving to a filing cabinet. he removed the drawers carefully, placing them on the floor. Picking the guitar back up, he set the head of the neck onto the cabinet and plucked a single string. The note filled the cabinet and reverberated outwards, amplified.

"Hollow objects like dressers and cabinets like this become amplifiers when the vibrations of the guitar pass through them right. Makes a killer side-show trick and all. Just gotta know how to pull it off."

Steph smiled and sat down on a gurney pushed against the wall.

"Well that's nifty. You're just full of surprises, aren't ya?"

"Yeah. A mind full of useless trivia, small tricks, and all the right information about things no one wants to know."

He placed the guitar back in it's bag, zipping the case closed. An idle thought crossed his mind as he remembered the stone he'd pulled from the inside of the guitar. He retrieved the object, along with the one Stephanie had given him, looking at them in the fluorescent lighting.

"I wonder what the deal is with these things." He thought out loud.

"There you go again." Steph sighed.

"What?"

She shook her head and crossed over to him, closing his hand in hers.

"Always trying to solve puzzles and find clues. We're safe for something like the first time since either of us got here. Just relax. Don't worry about it for now."

He brushed her off gently, turning to pace across the room.

"How can I when every move we make seems to get us into more trouble? I'm worried about the guys. I'm worried about L. I'm worried about us. It's all just getting worse and there doesn't seem to be a way out of it. So far, the last remaining clues we've got are these little zodiac stones. That...and a mysterious Mr. K. that we know very little about, aside from the fact that he's a freaking loon. I want to know how he's connected to all of this, and what these stones are for."

She sighed, exasperated.

"You know, one day you're going to think yourself to death." And out came a little bit of a southern accent, and a rather surprised look from her. "You didn't just hear that..."

"Hear what?" Damarik turned to look at her with a face blank enough to be considered borderline mind-locked.

"Nothing. So anyway, what's your theory here, Mr. Wizard?"

He shrugged, putting the stones aside.

"I have no god honest idea."

"Then tell me about L." She piped up.

Damarik gave her an odd look. "What do you want to know?"

"Everything. How you met him. What he's really like..."

"This could take a while...are you sure?"

Stephanie nodded.

"Well...lets start at the beginning then. I met L when I was about fourteen. A lot of people would think that's a young age to be discerning alternate personalities as anything but fantasy...but that's how it is. Came home late from work one night...and basically to make a long story short, there he was. Just talking to me inside my head." Damarik stood up, slowly pacing around the room as he continued. "We didn't get on so well for the first few months. It's kinda unsettling to know that something is always watching you."

"I'd imagine so. But where did he come from?"

"Scotland...just outside of the city of Stirling. Or so we believe. That's the place I had the most vivid flashbacks...and still probably the one place I truly feel home."

"You've been there?" She asked.

"Yeah. A couple times now. Beautiful countryside."

"So...has he ever been mad at you? Like...really angry?" She continued to prod.

"Yeah. Marks he leaves on the astral plane can actually show up here on me if he's angry enough. I think I've still got a scar here somewhere from a long time ago...ah. There it is." Damarik lifted up his shirt and nodded to a pale slice mark along his left side. "I can't remember what I did, but boy was he pissed. So much so that the I'd swear the roar he left out woke up the entire house."

"Doesn't that hurt both of you though?"

"Yeah...and one day, he's going to remember that before he acts." D laughed. "He's got a matching one if you look close enough, though...most of his body IS scar tissue."

"You said he roared...what does it sound like? I can imagine all sorts of things, but nothing quite seems to fit." She looked amused.

"Well...it's kind of like a mixture between a lion and...oh, I don't know. A bear? I can't really say for sure...but it's definitely something you don't want to hear."

Stephanie was about to continue when an ear splitting bellow echoed through the halls of the school. The hollow sound echoed far into every crevice and even as he realized the significance, it sent an icy chill down Damarik's spine, the memory of that lancing scar burning in his side and the twisted maw of the beast that had loosed it coming back clear as day.

"You wanted to know? You just found out. Hang On L! We're Coming!" D grabbed his things and burst through the door back into the hallway with lightning speed as the tingle in his head became painfully sharp, forcing his right eye closed. He tried to push it away, but the throbbing was there all the same, blurring his vision. He darted left and right around corners and doors, finding ways around blocked passages until he hit the bottom of the stairs to the next floor in the southwest corner of the building.

"L! Where are you?" The pain had dulled, but the tingle-tracker was useless. He couldn't feel the slight differences in location through the incessant bursts of agony that screamed through his head.

"You think he's up there? I couldn't tell where it came from." Steph choked out, gasping for air as she finally caught up.

"Well...I doubt he'd have been able to fit downstairs...so up is the best option for now." Damarik replied, a hand covering his right eye to try and ease the pulsating feeling.

"Let's get going then." She unsheathed the katana from the snakeskin saya, rushing up the stairs ahead of Damarik. He caught up to her at the landing to the second floor, following her gaze up the stairway to the third.

"Now that just isn't creepy or anything like that."

The stairs ran up to the midway landing where they should've turned back upon themselves to go to the third floor...but instead, they kept on going straight up from there. Almost like a stairway to heaven...or in this case, a stairway to High Hell and above. They continued going up to a point of light that was probably a doorway, but as the two began their ascent and trekked further up the stairs, they found themselves getting no closer to the light.

"This is insane. We should've been there by now! What is this, a funhouse?" Steph complained.

Damarik stopped to take in the moment.

"You're right, it doesn't make sense. First off, they shouldn't be climbing the way they are. In a stairwell, the steps backtrack on themselves at some point. We must've climbed at least two floors by now." He said as he turned around to look behind them. "Oh hell no, you've gotta be kidding me."

"What?" She asked, before seeing the sight herself.

Below, the stairs descended straight down to a red light much as the way up turned to the white light. It seemed to flicker as though it were alive itself, casting a harsh fiery glow upon the walls of the stairway.

"So...up or down?"

Damarik took a step downward. The red light didn't seem to get any further away. He took a few more...and the light got closer.

"Damn it...I guess we're going down."

They proceeded cautiously towards the glowing doorway, leaving the bright white far behind them. When finally they stood at the bottom, Damarik motioned for Steph to stay still as he looked through the portal.

Inside, it seemed as though the fires of Hell themselves had been unleashed about a large corridor. At the end, there was another doorway, leading off to who knew where. D stepped into the hallway with Steph at his heels, and made his way to the opposite end. The door here had been scored with gouges from the other side, visible through dented metal and gashes in the framework. Steel bolts had been wrenched from their holes, and the hinges the door sat upon were badly damaged from blunt force impact. They were bent and twisted by the force on the other side of the door.

Strangely enough, when Damarik put a hand to the door, it opened by itself. The hinges creaked as the large metal structure swung aside until they gave way, the door crashing to the ground with a thunderous rapport. They both stepped into the room beyond with great care, treading lightly on a rusted out, pock-marked surface.

Near the middle of the room, it appeared that the floor had been burned to ashes, though beneath it still lie another layer of metal. A good portion of the room looked that way to be sure, scorch marks and smoldering remnants of the contents of the space lay strewn about in wreckage.

"What kind of fire burns hot enough to melt steel that thick?" Stephanie asked as she knelt down to examine one of the floor plates. It had to have been at least two to three inches thick.

"Well, aside from an industrial strength tungsten arc welder or a chemical fire...there's only one that comes to mind." Damarik's tone was shaky, his still usable eye flitting about the room in panic. He put a hand to Stephanie's shoulder, motioning her behind him. Ignoring the pain in his right eye, he left the hand that was covering it fall to the hilt of the nodachi, drawing the blade from it's sheath. The blade shown a violent crimson in the light of the fires that still burned throughout the room.

His eyes casting left and right, fore and aft, Damarik stepped further into the burning void at high alert for the slightest movement.

A rattling suction sound was all the warning they had before dual jets of white hot fire came blazing through the space they had occupied seconds before. It roared onto the metal floor, the iron and steel melting as though it were butter. The two barely managed to duck out of the way before a second blast, this one much larger, hurtled towards them at unimaginable speeds. The fireball flew across the room and hit the opposing wall from whence it came, burning a hole clean through to the abyss on the other side.

"What the Hell is going on here D?" Stephanie shouted over the roar of the flames.

"Someone is Very angry..." He spoke, barely audible. Fixated on the spot from where the attacks had come from, he was met with two blue and white orbs staring back at him from the shadows. With the nodachi held tightly in his grip, Damarik stepped forward to face them.

"D? Are You Crazy?"

He shook his head.

"No...since the time we first met...I sometimes harbored that thought." A grim expression crossed his face. "Whenever someone told me I was, I just laughed it off. But even then, I was never too sure myself."

Another jet zoomed past Damarik. He didn't move as the heat from the fire bled through his jacket.

"And now...when I was so sure I'd found the answer...the safe ability to say no...this happens." He spoke at the eyes. "I somehow had a feeling it was going to end up like this the moment you vanished."

As Stephanie watched him face down the icy cold countenance of those blue orbs, she saw a tear roll down D's cheek. His face contorted into one of enraged sorrow as he stood there, unblinking.

Fire erupted around the eyes of their opponent, making his appearance look as though he'd ascended from the deepest depths of the underworld. Majestically, the creature padded forward on it's long limbs, charred leather barely covering up patches of muscle and bone that peeked through the no longer intact outer covering. He looked no better than a zombie now with parts of his muzzle burned away by the fire around him, his skull visible on the left side of his face down to the nostril where fangs longer than were expected, protruded out and over the bottom lip. As he fanned his once graceful wings, the skeletal frame wrapped in bits of torn ligaments and sinew cracked and snapped with every movement, the insides exposed for all to see.

L took a few more paces out into the room before stopping to face his other half.

_'You dare to raise a blade against me, little one?'_ That aural tone asked, free for everyone to hear.

"I dare to raise my blade against an impostor...one who looks and sounds like, but is not my true soul partner." Damarik seethed, a few more tears joining the first from behind clenched eyelids.

"D...what are you doing? This is mad!" Stephanie yelled to him, trying to make herself heard.

_'I see you still drag the baggage along. Comforting to have someone with you...someone you believe will never be better than you. It makes it easier to deal with that fact, doesn't it?'_

"What do you mean, demon?"

_'You know very well what I speak of child. Someone to protect...to make you feel better about yourself. Someone who relies on you. Someone who can't exist without you. Isn't that what you've always wanted? To be the Knight in Shining Armor?'_

"Shut Up! You Know NOTHING About Me!" Damarik shouted at the draconic beast.

_'I Do Know About You, Because We Are ONE And The SAME Soul!'_

"LIAR!" Damarik leapt forward in a flash, his blade a blur as it traced a thin line across the monster's nose. He fell back in horror and pain though, as an exact mark appeared on his own face, the cut beginning to bleed slightly. "No..."

_'Yes. It is True. Believe it or not, the evidence is there.'_

D wiped the blood from his face on his sleeve, transferring some of it to the katana where it ran the length of the blood groove etched into the steel. What began as a symbolic ritual soon turned into supernatural as the high-carbon steel itself began to glow white amidst the red, orange and black of the room. With a rather surprised look at it, Damarik twisted the sword in his grip, flying forward to deliver another strike to the dragon.

L wheeled away, blasting a jet of fire down upon D. He barely managed to bring the blade up to deter the fire, only to find that the sword had deflected it completely. Pressing the attack, human and dragon soon became a whirling dance of steel and fire, razor edges and fangs. L brought his teeth to bare upon the blade and caught it in his mouth. He wrenched it from Damarik's grip and threw it across the room. Without a weapon in hand, Damarik quickly threw a fist out at the monstrosity, breaking the cartilage of the beast's nose in a bone crushing blow. Shocked by the strike, L quickly spun around and brought his tail into play, Damarik barely managing to jump over the bony whip.

Rolling away from the swipe of massive claws, D leapt across the room towards the nodachi where it had landed. The blade had been badly damaged by L's teeth, but still held part of an edge. He drew the weapon up close to himself, bringing the massive edge around behind him in a gesture of taunt.

_'You think to fool me with that ruse? Do not forget who it was that read your every thought and knows you better than even YOU do!'_

L roared out and another blaze ensued, screaming towards the human. Instead of moving to avoid the fire, the dragon had played right into his gambit allowing him the chance to truly trick the beast. From the stance, he swung the blade around as the dragon had expected. But instead of swinging at flesh, D swung at the flames that had been loosed upon him. As he'd hoped, they repelled the fire away from the edge of the weapon. Bringing it across the space directly before him, he pulled the fire into a small funnel of air created by the blade as it passed. Once the sword reached the end of the first stroke, he brought it around above his head and sliced clean down towards the dragon. The flames themselves were pulled with the motion, retaining every bit of speed they'd had when first unleashed. As they went roaring back at the dragon with the force of a full on firestorm, D caught a look of shock in the beast's eyes, realizing too late his own folly.

The fire collided with L, scorching the creature even further.

"Listen well Laegreffon of the Silver Shards...You chose me just as I accepted you." He took a few steps forward as the dragon battled to snuff out the blaze upon it's body. He gripped the hilt of the katana and brought the back of the blade up to meet the shoulder of his sword arm. "You helped me understand who I am, just as I helped you to heal your emotional wounds." A few more steps brought him within a point of no return range for another fire blast from L. "But just as you healed my wounds...so too can you cause me pain. I may not be able to heal you physically...but I can just as easily injure you."

Stephanie stood back as she watched a cold, heartless shield fall over Damarik's gaze. His face for that moment, looked as though it could slaughter millions of innocents without remorse. Yet still, something bespoke in the way he moved that told of the massive regret to come.

As the dragon did away with the final embers that had been charring what was left of his skin, L turned to face Damarik once more.

_'This may be true...but remember. What happens to me, happens to you as well.'_ L nodded towards Damarik's jacket. Burn marks had appeared in the fabric, and the skin beneath it boiled and bubbled from the heat that had been felt by the other. If it hurt though, Damarik showed no signs. He shook his head at the creature.

"No...the only thing that will happen to you that can hurt me now...is something I've got to do myself."

L roared and lunged at D, and the two combatants met. The blade was gripped in L's massive front paws, the edge cutting grooves deep into the pads of the undersides of his clawed fingertips. D's hands welled up with blood around the hilt of the katana even as he pressed the blade further into the monster's hands. With a massive swing, he threw the dragon off the blade. The creature backpedaled, it's wings trying to help it regain it's balance, but Damarik had taken the initiative. He dove forward underneath L even as the dragon belched flame down upon him. It missed it's mark as with nigh inhuman speed, D brought the blade up between them, driving it into the creature's chest. Even as he did, one hand pried it's way into the top compartment of the guitar bag on his back, drawing one of the ampoules. He quickly tore off the protective seal with his teeth and jammed the needle into his chest before twisting the katana inside the dragon. As L began to topple sideways with a bellowing cry, Damarik ripped the katana loose from his other half, dropping to one knee in blinded pain...praying that the medicine did what he hoped it would.

When at last the dragon lie on it's side, breathing heavily but unmoving otherwise, Damarik left go of the katana and let it clatter to the steel floor. He fought back the agonizing fire within as the medication inside the syringe took effect and as if by magic, just as the drink had done, it closed up the wound that he had inflicted upon the dragon, and by proxy, himself. Slowly, the pain ebbed away and he stood, looking to Stephanie.

"You all right?" He asked.

She nodded quickly, her blade already back in it's sheath. Together, they moved closer to L's prone form. Damarik watched in awe as the room around them returned to the less frightening, more surreal world of fog and shadows...and in a swathe of light, L's body glimmered and repaired itself, turning instead of black to a mint green color with an ivory underside. The dragon had been returned to his original coloration in his dying moments.

_'Little one...what has happened?'_

Damarik shook at little as he knelt down by the dragon, feeling his labored breathing through his sides.

"It's time to rest brother...friend." D's voice wavered uncertainly, a sob threatening to rip it's way out of the confining enclosure.

_'Oh good. I'm so tired. It's been far too long since I really had a chance to sleep well.'_ One of L's large eyes fluttered closed as the other trained upon his human half. _'Do me one small favor, will you?'_

"Sure...what's on your mind?"

A faint glow enshrouded the dragon's face as a blue light rose from within L's open eye. The light faded slowly and with a small clatter, a blue orb lanced through with white dropped to the ground. Both L's eyes were closed now, though one was considerably sunken in.

_'Take this with you...I'm sure you know well what it does by now.'_ The dragon chuckled through his pain.

"I know this orb very well. I'll keep it always and listen for your return." Damarik picked it up and held it close.

_'Good. For now, I leave you to rest. Fair well until we meet again, little one.'_

"I shall. Sleep well, Laegreffon Damarik Laizare, Dragon of the Glen of Silver Shards."

It was a long while after L stopped breathing before either of the two humans moved or spoke. Not until they heard the sound of two pairs of footsteps racing down the stairs to the hallway outside the corridor that led to the room. Both Savage and Sasquatch came running in to see Stephanie nearly cradling Damarik as he left loose his despair, the dragon's muzzle held close to his other half's chest while tears ran freely from one face to another before landing on the cold, tile floor.

"We came running when we heard the roar...just a couple blocks down." Sasquatch panted, wiping sweat off his face.

Stephanie looked up at them, a helpless look on her face while she held D. Both of the brothers knew what had happened just by the scene before them. A bloody sword on the ground, a small laceration in the dragon's chest with life giving liquid flowing out of it in small, steady streams...and one broken young man on the floor in tears told the whole tale. It would've been obvious even if they hadn't known of the town's strange abilities to warp realities.

Once Damarik had calmed down enough, the other three left him to be with L while they congregated outside the room.

"Do you think it's still a good idea to be trusting this guy?" Savage asked. Sasquatch shrugged.

"I don't know if we should be asking that right now. If what he's saying is true...then he basically just had to kill a part of himself. Doesn't sound all that pleasant if you ask me." Stephanie replied in kind.

"I still don't know if I believe any of that crap yet. And what about you? You were deathly afraid of that thing not more than a day ago. Why the change of heart?"

She turned to look back in the room, Damarik still hadn't moved from the spot.

"I don't think he's lying. And before you guys got here, I saw something. I'm not sure I can explain it fully, but...it's just something that makes me believe he wasn't what I thought he was. To D, L is a real, living thing. I saw D attack him, and do real damage. But then, I saw it happen to him too. They were connected somehow. And those cries you hear in there...those are real too. I felt that not even moments ago. I almost cried...I don't know why. Yeah, he scared me a bit at first. So I asked Damarik to tell me about him, and he did. I guess I understood him better or something, I don't know. Now that he's gone, I think I came to terms with it. It's a little late, sure...but I did. And now, I can't help but feel bad for him. It's like a kid who just found out his dog got hit by a car or something. Except worse."

Steph sighed as she leaned back against the wall, arms across her chest.

Savage ran a hand through his hair, still not sure he understood.

Sasquatch just stayed put, looking between the two of them.

"Well, if we're gonna get out of here, we need to get him out of there first." The younger brother stated.

"Agreed..." Savage returned.

"Maybe we should give him a little more time." Steph suggested.

There was a sound in the room as Damarik sheathed the nodachi and slung it beneath the guitar bag again.

"Sounds like he's ready to go to me."

D calmly stepped out of the room with one hand pressed against his right eye. Stephanie made to check if he was all right, but he waved her away, revealing the orb firmly placed in his right eye socket. It flashed over once before changing color to look like a normal eye, and moved just as the left one did when he scanned the three of them and their shocked expressions.

"So...who wants to hang around again?" He asked before stepping past them towards the stairway, and the exit.


	10. Beginning of the End

_"__Frail and dry...I could lose it all but I cannot recall. It's all wrong._

_So don't cry. Clear away this hate and we can start to make it alright_._"_

_Lyrics to the song "Away" by: Breaking Benjamin, Copyright in 2004 to Breaking Benjamin and Hollywood Records.

* * *

_

" Just let me be for now. I need time to think."

"Again with the thinking. God, you'd think until you were dead if I let ya...take a break D." Steph toned in.

Damarik sat on the steps to the school, eyeing the chasms in the schoolyard before him with feigned interest. He'd just slain his best friend, and they wanted him to continue on? What else was there? If there had been any good reason to keep going by now, he'd have thought of it already...wouldn't he? Well, he hoped he would've.

"Come on dude. We've been through worse." Savage patted him on the shoulder...which still stung ever so slightly.

Damarik pushed himself up off the cold concrete and stepped down the stairs, hitting the bottom before his legs decided to give out from the strain of the last few days. His face met solid ground with a grunt and a heavy sigh.

"Suppose I deserve that." He muttered, picking himself up into a sitting position.

"Oh give it a rest. Enough with the poor me bullshit." Steph shot. "You think you're having it rough? Just wait. It's gonna be a lot worse, guaranteed."

"And just what the fuck do you know that the rest of us don't?" Damarik fired back.

Steph stood there silent, not sure of what to say next. Her face had gone slightly paler than normal, which in itself was a feat for her already ghostly complexion. But, she steeled herself and kept on.

"Well, think about it. It hasn't exactly gotten any better since we started yet, has it? You really think it's going to be all sunshine and rainbows after what just happened? Fuck No! Now get your ass up and keep moving damn it! We've still got places to go, and instead of thinking about it, how about we ACT for a change? Maybe you can start by acting your fucking age!" The venom in her voice flowed.

Savage leaped into action the moment he saw Damarik's fist ball up, catching him square under the arms in a Full Nelson hold as Damarik flung himself wildly at Stephanie.

"Talk about acting our ages! Who's the one who hasn't lifted a damned finger to help out this entire trip! All you've done is piss and moan too! I gave you that blade for a reason, and so far, it hasn't even been used aside from drawing it to feel like you're proving a point to someone! Why don't you actually fucking use it for a change and hit something?" Damarik's right eye had lost it's guise, the blue orb shining with the white light of the glaring strike through it.

Stephanie stepped back, gaze steeled on Damarik.

"Let him go Savage." She spoke as she drew the katana. "He wants a fight, he'll get it."

"Are you crazy? One of you is going to end up dead if I do." Savage replied.

"Do you bitch! Hit me! Let's See What You've Got!" D raged, arms flying as he tried to break free from Savage's grip.

"I said, let him go." She said again, barely audible over Damarik's voice.

Somewhere amidst the insanity, Damarik landed a well placed reverse-kick to Savage's groin, ripping loose from the larger man's hold. He threw himself at the woman who'd mocked him furiously. As Savage doubled over and his brother went to his side, the fight had already become intense. For every swing D threw, Stephanie had parried and lanced a slice across his arms, not daring to take the initiative as she left her opponent's anger get the better of him.

"Stop Defending And Swing Damn It!" Damarik bellowed. "Show me that you're worth wasting my time dragging you along by proving you know how to use that weapon properly!"

His outburst had caught her off guard, allowing D time to snake his way through her defense. He landed a solid blow to her gut followed by an elbow to the chin, knocking her to the ground. A look of surprise lit her face as she took note that his real eye, or rather, the normal looking one, had glazed over in his rage. With her defense cleanly broken, Damarik gave her time to stand back up before striking again, fury barely contained.

"You actually hit me." Steph gasped, more shocked about the realization than the actual pain he caused. There had to be a broken rib somewhere in the lower numbers...it hurt far more than it should have when she took a breath. "I can't believe you really hit a girl."

"Either that or I hit something that isn't worth my time and effort. Now come at me! You're going to show me you know how to use that thing." He swung again.

Stephanie pushed his arm aside, kicking his right leg out from under him. Damarik immediately dropped to the ground, his bad knee collapsing from the combined stress of the recent events and the blow it had just been dealt. He winced, gritting his teeth through the pain, and brought his arms up in an X to take the bite of the steel edge as it came down towards his face. The sword cut into the thicker sides of his arms, away from the exposed arteries. He pulled both hands to the sword, twisting it...and wrenched it clean from her grip, turning the weapon on her now.

"Just as I thought." He remarked with the tip aimed for her throat. "You don't know how to swing it. If you did, I would've been missing an arm just then." He spat, wiping the blood from his arms onto his jeans one arm at a time to keep the blade pointed at her. He glared at her, turning towards the schoolyard...and spied what he'd been looking for. Walking over to it with a pronounced limp, he swung the blade at the nearly dead sapling, slicing it clean down the middle.

Stephanie watched on, either petrified in fear or awe of the man whom could've just ended her like it never mattered. As he returned to her, he held the pommel of the weapon out to her. She gingerly took it away from him, putting it back in the sheath as he spoke.

"Katanas are slicing weapons, not blunt force impact. When you swing, you have to draw the blade towards whatever direction you're swinging. Make your foe take the full edge of the blade in one clean swipe by pivoting your wrists during the attack in an arcing motion. Otherwise, it's just a sharp stick for poking dead things." With that, he turned and limped away, skirting the outsides of the chasms towards the weak section of fence they'd scaled to get inside the school.

Savage walked over to her, hand still on his crotch with a wince in each step.

"Has he always been like that?" Stephanie asked him.

Savage shook his head slowly.

"No...I've never seen him get that pissed. He would never knowingly hit a woman...that's just not the D I know." He replied through gritted teeth.

* * *

When they finally caught up to Damarik, he was sitting inside a small cafe, eyes closed with his head against the backrest of the booth seat. His arms were bandaged and one of the red-bottled drinks lie emptied of it's contents on the table. The Nodachi had been abandoned after the fight with L, given it had been twisted and deformed beyond use, which left him without a weapon...but surprisingly he seemed to have made it to the cafe in one piece and now lie asleep in the booth. The others all gathered around him, watching him cautiously for any signs that the earlier rage was still inhabiting his mind, however no signs made themselves apparent.

What did stick out though, was a small flier for a shop on the other side of town...the Green Lion Pawn Shop. Zack picked it up and saw that on the table, the twin Leo crested stones had been holding it down, matching up with two designs on the sheet of paper.

"Looks like he figured out where to go next I suppose." Savage said, looking at the address. "Ya know, all this chasing after him is starting to irritate me."

"If you don't like it, go home." D spoke.

Everyone jumped slightly, looking down at him. His eyes were still closed, and his breathing was light and listless; for all intents and purposes, he looked like he was asleep. But that blue orb appeared from behind an opening eyelid, trained on them with a distinct intensity. It moved from one to another, passing over them each with a slight indifference before returning to hiding behind the eyelid that lazily drooped back down over it.

"And yes...I do believe that is my next destination." He sighed, stretching and yawning widely before returning to his comfortable position.

"What do you mean, 'your' next destination? What about the rest of us?" Zack asked.

D looked up at them, eyes open and normal, the blue hiding behind it's false appearance again.

"Well...either you're all holding me back, or I'm just moving too fast for everyone. Either way, it's probably best that you find your own paths. Sticking with me is just going to keep getting people in danger...and I don't want that." His voice seemed to be it's usual lively tone, despite his wearied appearance. With a shrug, he sat up. "I mean really...do you seriously want to keep following around a guy like me? Someone who has little control over his temper and isn't even sure he's going the right way?"

Everyone seemed to think on that for a few moments longer than D felt comfortable with. Just as he was about to add his 'Didn't Think So', Steph spoke up.

"Doesn't make a difference to me. I got no where else **_to_** go, so I might as well. Either I end up dead on my own, or I end up dead with you. Not much of a choice either way if you ask me but at least with the second option, I'd have some company. Even if it is rather emo-tastic company." She snarked, giving him a defiant look.

D made no move to get up, instead just reclining back against the booth again. Steph took the seat across from him while the two brothers continued their silent contemplation amongst themselves.

"So. Where's this place at?" She asked.

"Not sure. But, given the street, if I remember correctly, it's back across the bridge on the other side of town. I remember seeing Simmons Street across from Taco Shack where we met these two." He thumbed at the Seigers. "Just barely caught it out of the corner of my eye right before we dove through the window."

Steph nodded, toying with her hair in mild disinterest at the prospect of going anywhere near the sanitarium again...remembering what chased them down the streets from underneath the metal grating. Remembering how it had just neatly dined upon the creature that had dogged her every step through the nut-house.

"Okay. We get to this place. We find out what is there. Works for me." Zack spoke up.

"Easy there Sasquatch." Savage halted him. "Come here for a second." He spoke softly as he drug his brother back towards the kitchen of the cafe.

Damarik's orb followed them as far as his range of vision allowed before it trained back upon Stephanie. The curious white haze of light it left out every time it showed it's true form dimly lit the space between them as they sat there in relative silence.

"Two bucks says they go their own way." Damarik stretched, kicking his feet out underneath the table to the opposing bench.

"Dunno. Not like they've been much help either." Steph replied.

"Look at the pot calling the kettle a nigga." D scoffed.

"What?" She gave him a quirked brow before the irony of the statement set in. "Oh har fuckin har. What, you racist too?"

"Pfft. Fuck no. You can be black and not be a nigger. Just like you can be white and be one. It's all in how you carry your attitude."

"You're one to talk about attitude, Mr. Swing it Right."

There was a tense moment of silence between them before the two came back from the kitchen.

"Well, what's the verdict Savage?" D asked, shaking off the last remark.

"We're going downtown. See if we can't find a way of our own." He said.

"Figured as much." D stood up slowly, shaking the feeling back into his limbs before pulling Savage close in a brotherly hug. "Be safe man."

"You too, ya crazy son of a bitch."

Zack gave a wave as the two exited the building, turning down the street towards the center of town. D stood there with hands in pockets for another minute or two before sitting back down across from Steph.

"You still with me then I take it?" He asked.

"You ain't got rid of me yet. Highly unlikely now." She chuckled.

"Damn." D joked with a light smile on his face. "And here I was hoping that shot to the chin would've knocked some common sense into ya."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because...anyone with common sense would just turn around and say 'Fuck that Guy. He's Nuts.' Kinda glad you didn't though."

Steph nodded, standing up. She made her way to the door, casting a gaze over her shoulder.

"Well, you just gonna sit around here, or are we going to keep on truckin'? Probably still have an ass-load to do before this place lets us go."

Damarik gave something of a silent curse knowing she was probably right. He stood up, grabbing his guitar bag as he made his way to the door. Together, they exited the building and looked up and down the street. Things were quiet on the front for a change. Just a few vehicles strewn about the roadway here and there...

"Wait a minute." D's eyes went wide, the blue once again mimicking a real eye. "Do my eyes deceive me?"

"What?"

Damarik took off down the block towards the center of town like Savage and his brother had, stopping near the corner to look over a familiar vehicle.

"No way in hell. I left this thing out on the interstate..." He ran his hands over the black paint, a silver racing stripe lining the center of the hood. Peering inside, everything he'd left inside...an extra bag of clothing, a bit off non-perishable food...and an extra gallon of iced tea...all of it was still there. Hoping against hope, he got in, pulled the carabiner of keys off his belt loop, and tried the ignition. The engine roared to life with a thunderous rapport. Stephanie came racing down the block at the sound of an engine and hopped in the passenger's seat without so much as a blink of hesitation.

"This yours?" She asked.

"Fuck yeah. Bought it off a buddy for about one hundred and seventy-five bucks. Cheap vehicle, good quality. My Jeep is one of the toughest things on the road where I live." He reached around back, grabbing the fresh jug of tea. A few long swallows later, it rested on the center console just above the emergency brake where they always did. With that, he lit up a cigarette, passing one to her and they both enjoyed some minor comforts while the engine warmed up.

"Not bad. You really had some things going for ya, didn't you?"

Damarik shrugged.

"A little here, a little there. Never anything too solid. But, just makes it easier to get away from if necessary."

With that said, he threw the vehicle into gear, pulled a U-Turn and took the left that would drop them off on the other side of the bridge. They continued in silence for a bit, the radio emitting nothing but an ear splitting static before it had been shut off...even with a CD in the player. As Damarik turned left onto Simmons Street, he felt a renewed burst of energy come on, like they were finally getting somewhere after all the shit they'd been through.

The Green Lion was a small pawn shop near the end of the street on the right...barely worth notice even with a lit doorway. The sign above it was faded and worn, almost unreadable in the dim light from below it. But it was definitely the place. Damarik parked the Jeep and they both got out, heading through a thankfully unlocked front door. The inside of the building wasn't much to look at either...given most of the stock was on the floor or broken. A small booth for the cashier sat off to the back right hand corner of the room, a door leading to some back area blocked by a broken lock that jiggled when Damarik rattled the door.

"Fuck. I guess whatever answer we're looking for is somewhere here among the mess." He sighed, starting to sift through things.

Stephanie nodded and knelt down to join the hunt, only to stumble across something right away.

"Check this out." She said, holding up a file folder with the typed title of "F1WRB7 - S. K#/(#".

"Son of a bitch, it's this guy again!" D shouted in recognition. He immediately flipped open the folder and was met with a stack of papers that fell to the floor like so many cards in a game of fifty-two pick up. With a curse, he gathered them up and put them back in order before taking a seat against the wall of the counter.

"You think it's something?" Steph asked.

Damarik nodded. "This guy's info has been following me, I swear. Last one I read was some kinda wicked journal entry...dudeman planned to kill one of the doctors at the psych-ward."

"Ouch. Sounds like a perfect gentleman." She gave a disgusted look before returning to searching.

"I'm gonna look this stuff over. See if what we're looking for isn't in here." He said, diving into the papers.

Stephanie continued turning over boxes and things, junk from an era long ago or new items pawned off for cash. Everything and anything lie strewn about the small shop room. Damarik cast her a few angry glares every now and then when she shattered something and broke his concentration, but otherwise stayed glued to the papers. After a while, he managed to tune her out, finally giving a silent sigh of relief when she stopped and started reading a book she'd found.

'_Maybe now I can get somewhere_.' He thought, flipping to the next page in the stack.

* * *

_..._

_The patient still shows signs of mild psychosis...and harbors no regret whatsoever for the murder of Dr. Rabbans. The woman in question that the patient desires to see stopped in the day after the murder in an attempt to visit with him, but was denied access under the grounds of strict quarantine._

_At this time, the patient has all but ceased to believe he is being visited by people from a mirror world. One still remains persistent however, and he details this one as a younger woman, much like the alternate personality he displays from time to time. Though they are believed to be in fact two different concepts, a split persona and a hallucination, it is no short questionable circumstance that one of the displayed alternate personalities has vanished, or so the patient claims._

_The more violent persona, known as 'Marius', has apparently ceased communication with the patient. While it is just the patient's word, perhaps there is some progress on the front of conquering these 'voices' in his head. If so, we are that much closer to ultimately freeing him of these demons. Now we just need to work on ridding him of the feminine persona, 'Janie', and he can be sent to the judicial system to serve punishment for his crimes against Dr. Rabbans. _

_..._

_And on a personal note:_

_Not sure if it means anything more, but perhaps this 'Janie' is a mirror image as well. While not physical, she seems to portray a side of the patient that is completely opposite to him as a conjunctive whole. In short, everything she is, he isn't. Or at least she is different, to radical extremes in some case. But, there is conducive evidence to support that this alternate persona is nothing more than an envisioned version of the patient that is who or what he wants to see in himself. Sort of like a mother-figure, but more connected to his desires and wishes rather than being a source of inspiration or comfort and support._

* * *

Damarik stopped for a second, thinking on that.

'_This guy gets more and more lovable the more I read about him_.' He sighed, flipping to the next page.

* * *

_There's times when he believes that 'Janie' is in the room with us during our therapy sessions, as if she exists as a physical person. I find this intriguing because it presents us with a double edged problem. How to conquer both the belief that she's in his head talking to him, and how to prove that she cannot exist as a physical person? As two issues persist, there really is no set course for further evaluation until these are resolved. Once we bypass this problem, then we can move on with his final few days within these walls._

_As a whole, on the verge of success, I feel inspired and spurred to move forward with his therapy, despite my initial misgivings about the patient._

_Appearances were in fact deceiving when I first met him. He was a tall man of a little more than six feet, dressed in all black with a full chin and head of hair, and a very sullen, depressed yet angry look behind his eyes. Now when I see him, instead of that distraught man, I see someone with promise. His outlook is greatly changed on life for the better, and he never once requested to be left go of the building. He realized he needed help. As we say, that's always the first step to getting it. And I'm glad I've had a hand in helping this young man find his light in life again._

_Even with the threat of prison hanging over his head, he's built a strong case for himself during his down time, and may even be able to scrape himself up a plea bargain for insanity. After all, and even I have to say so though not without respect for my colleague...Rabbans was an abusive ass to the patients. Many of them and the staff would testify if he asked._

_Perhaps this man, deemed hopeless by society...wasn't so hopeless at all. Perhaps he was just a little bit lost and in need of a guiding beacon of hope. I'm glad we were able to give that to him, and I really do hope to see the day where I don't have to visit him in the office here. I'd like to have a chat with him in my own office at the Cape sometime, away from the anxieties this place puts on all of us._

_But, that is left to be discovered. Until then, all I can do is try to assist a fellow man in a fight against his personal demons._

* * *

Damarik set the papers down, looking over to Steph. She was deep into a book she'd found amongst the refuse, the title "Are We Real?" barely visible upon the front of the book in the dim lighting.

"Good read?" He asked, startling her out of her senses.

"Yeah...sort of. What about you?"

"Well, it's a long shot, but I have another destination at least. Something about a Cape. Know anything about it?"

Steph thought for a moment.

"Well, there's an old Lighthouse down across town by the edge of the lake. That's the only cape I know of, and it's more of just a beach with a few docks for boats. Almost looked like a small shipping yard last I saw it. But it's back across the bridge again, close to an old burnt out amusement park and some resort hotel." She got up, picking up a leaf of paper from the ground. As she marked her spot in the book, she walked over to him and sat down beside him, putting a hand on his shoulder.

Damarik's face was contorted in thought again, his gaze unfocused as his mind tried to put two and two together.

"Maybe this guy got his plea bargain. Maybe they let him go. If that's the case...I'll bet Kauffman talked him into a sit down session at his private office." He handed her the last paper he'd read and withdrew another cigarette from his coat. As she read it over, he burned the nicotine away, the smoke coiling in front of him through dead air.

"Seems like the Doc was a half-decent guy if you ask me." Steph remarked, handing the paper back to him. He put it away in the folder which he kept tucked close to himself, intent on keeping hold of some info.

"I think that's where we're going next. If things turned out for the better, we'll have another clue. If not, we'll be in no better position than if they hadn't."

Back outside, the two got into the Jeep. Damarik gunned the engine through the streets and back across the bridge while Steph gave him directions from memory. Soon, they passed into a part of town marked out as "South Park", D half expecting to see some bad mock up of a few cartoon characters on a building somewhere. Disappointed though, they continued on. As they neared the shipping yard and a stray forklift or two gave hint that they were close, the Jeep vibrated with a harsh resonance. Damarik stopped and pulled over, listening to the engine idle for a few seconds.

Nothing.

"What the hell was that about?" He thought out loud.

"No clue." Steph returned.

The vibration hit hard again.

"Damn...that wasn't the Jeep that time." He shut the engine off and got out of the SUV, looking around.

Still nothing.

Stephanie stepped out, hands on the hilt of the Katana.

And again, the vibration hit...but this time came with the sound of rending steel and the collapse of buildings.

There...a burst of wood and steel caught his eye down by the corner of the road at the edge of the lake. Something massive was coming. A familiar roar ripped through the air, and Damarik took no further time. He ran to the other side of the Jeep, gripped Steph around the wrist, and made for the docks. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of the whale sized beast that had chased them to Taco Shack, a mound of flesh just tearing up asphalt and concrete as though it were nothing to the monster. As it breached the surface of the ground, the beast could be seen in whole.

It had to be at least half a football field in length. Spines jutted out from it at all angles along it's midsection, and a maw full of chipped, cracked and intact fangs bore down on them from above. What might've been flippers ended in massive paws tipped in talons that drove it through the man made constructs, tearing them apart like paper before it, though they were stubby compared to the creature's body size. What appeared to be power cables coursed through it's hide, charging the air around it with a distinct crackle of miniature bolts of lightning as it hit the ground, rattling the earth all about them.

Damarik pulled her onto the wooden platform above the water, noting with some keen interest that the monster seemed hesitant to follow them out across the water. He stopped halfway down the dock, breathing heavily through a slight grin.

"I think we're safe out here." He gasped, bending over to rest his hands upon his knees.

A slight tap on the shoulder brought his attention back to the situation through his moment of relief though, as he looked up and saw Steph pointing behind him with a terrified look upon her face. Damarik stood up and slowly turned around to see the metal-headed monstrosity from the apartment building standing on the end of the dock, steel sword glinting in the reflection of the light house's light upon the waves...

THE LIGHTHOUSE! Surely it had solid walls and thick doors. If they could make it there...

He saw the beam tracing it's way from across the water, on the distant shore.

But the thing with a red pyramid for a head lurched forward dragging that beastly weapon behind it, shaking the dock with every step.

"I've had just about enough of this joker..." Damarik heaved, running towards it. He took off from the dock, landing a jump kick straight to the thing's helmet. The blow echoed inside rather nicely, and the monster stumbled off balance, dropping the blade to grapple with it's massive headgear. A hollow moan escaped from inside as it groped blindly at the helmet, staggering in place. Damarik seized the opportunity to grab the blade.

Surprisingly, it wasn't as heavy as the monster was making it out to be or looked. He picked it up, hefting it with two hands and swung. The blade it deep into the thing's chest, throwing it clean off the dock and into the water with a large splash. The metal tip dropped and bit into the dock after the blow had been landed, and it suddenly seemed all that much heavier in his hands, but Damarik held onto it tightly even as a burning pain lanced up his arms. As he watched, two symbols burned brightly through the fabric of his coat, searing into his skin. They looked rather ornate and intricate, but they still hurt like hell. It was all he could do to prevent himself from dropping the handle of the weapon. If he had, he wagered that it would've punched through the near rotting wood and sent them all into the water.

Turning to look back at Stephanie, he met her gaze with his and a grin of satisfaction.

"I think I found a new sword." He laughed, feeling the burning die down and a sudden calm fall over his mind.

Stephanie couldn't bring herself to words, but he was more than fixed on her. He found himself staring down the monster that had threatened to eat them a second time. While the two stood locked in a deadly gaze, the monster bowed in submission, diving back below the concrete and into the ground to Damarik's shocked pleasure.

"Well...let's hope that means what I think it does." He sighed, wiping sweat from his brow. The weapon seemed to continually be getting heavier, but once the monster had vanished and calm returned, it once again felt lighter than it's steeled design looked. He picked it up one handed this time and swung it around a bit while Steph continued to watch in either awe or horror. The look on her face was indiscernible between the two.

"How can you lift that thing? It must weigh at least three hundred pounds!" She exclaimed.

"Dunno. Feels to be about fifteen, twenty tops." He laughed, tossing it into the air. It pulled a single rotation and came back down, hilt dropping neatly back into his palm. He took the large weapon and held it over his shoulder in a heroic pose. "I like it either way."

"Compensating for something?" She retorted, a little of her snarky humor back in her voice.

"Hardly."


End file.
